


Live my Life in Self-Defence

by FZZT



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - actual murder? ish? dangerous happenings anyway, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, everybody knows their way around a corpse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-08 07:50:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7749355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FZZT/pseuds/FZZT
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've been trying to kill Neil Josten and his various other names ever since he escaped. Somebody tells him when they're coming - he doesn't know why. </p><p>There's a celebrity duo skilled in the art of murder. Turned against each other, one wants it all to end and one wants to end it all.</p><p>Left to their separate devices it could have worked out differently. However, the world is cruel, and Neil Josten and Andrew Minyard are neighbours, both caught off guard by how well the other can hide a body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not Quite Rock Bottom, I'm One Floor Up

Neil heard movement downstairs. This wasn’t unusual except it was 04:07 in the morning. Well, truth be told that still didn’t make it too unusual, the building’s population was on the younger side so everyone was hardly going to be tucked up in bed by midnight. However, on this specific night Neil was waiting for somebody to try and kill him. So taking everything into consideration he was probably justified in being on edge.

A bystander would assume his frown was due to the assassin. They would be right, though not for the obvious reason. Honestly Neil expected better. He was the son of The Butcher, he’d been on his own for years now; first by merely evading capture then eventually by striking down anyone who tried to get in his way. Even at 19 he wasn’t an easy target yet they sent someone sloppy enough to make a thump. It was offensive.

He hopped off the balcony railing, savouring one last look at the night sky before heading back inside. His eyes tried and failed to adjust to the near-absolute darkness inside as he picked his way across the room using his pre-prepared route. The blackout blinds were probably overkill - usually he didn’t need the advantage of a blind opponent - but Neil had been doing this far too long to rely on the usual. Besides, he had been forced to get new blinds to fit the windows on his new apartment and he wanted to try them out. The assassin probably wouldn’t appreciate him sprucing up the place but he himself would know.

His watch read 04:10 when he reached the landing outside the apartment, silently shutting the door behind him as he crouched in the shadows beside the stairwell. Whoever was trying to do him in, they really were taking their time. Neil had to be up in three hours to keep his schedule, did they have no consideration for his body clock? Well, he supposed, probably not considering they were expecting him to be a corpse by the end of the night. Cute.

Mentally running through his plan he figured he could be in bed asleep by 04:30 at the earliest, later if the assassin was better than expected and actually got some hits in. There was no reason his normal strategy shouldn’t work; confront the hitman on the landing, pretending to mess up in order to lure him into the apartment under the pretence of retreat. Then two or three knives later it would all be over. It was simple really. Or at least it would be simple if the assassin decided to show up.

After a few more minutes of peace Neil was starting to wonder if maybe the thump had just been his downstairs neighbour moving around. The guy was pretty odd so it was hardly impossible. _Pretty odd_ was an understatement actually; the guy was a complete wildcard. Neil had only been in the building three days and he had been warned about Andrew Minyard no less than seventeen times - a reputation earned in about a week, as he had only moved into the building ten days before Neil. They had only met once, though “met” was perhaps too strong a term as it implied interaction. The second day after Neil moved in they had passed in the hallway and Andrew completely ignored Neil’s greeting, though Neil liked to make the case that his frown had deepened. His background check was nothing too out of the ordinary, at least not in Neil’s world. A foster child with a stint in Juvie, a couple years of medication, now back on the straight and narrow. That is of course, if “straight and narrow” meant five feet of imposing venom that spat violent threats with every sentence and backed up 70% of them. Or so Neil had been told. He had been the prime suspect for a pre-planted hitman, especially with the timing of his move and Neil was only mildly disappointed to find out that wasn’t the case. He looked like a challenge. Not that Neil _needed_ a challenge right now per say – the process of starting a new life was fulfilling that role nicely – but it might make things a little more interesting.

The person currently stalking through the building should prove challenge enough but at this stage of the night Neil was beginning to think he’d die of old age before they made their move.

A sound at the bottom of the stairs instantly brought his mind back to the task at hand.

A slight creak on the landing below. A tiny rustle of clothing. The distinctive click of a lock being picked.

Wait a second.

Why was the assassin breaking into an apartment on the landing below? That was... Oh god that was Andrew Minyard’s apartment.

Neil was down the stairs and into the apartment below in a shot but he was too late. The door was wide open and he watched in horror as a dark figure slipped into the bedroom. He broke into a sprint but he knew it was no good. This wasn’t some teenager with a baseball bat, this was an experienced assassin, they wouldn’t waste any time. It might only take Neil ten seconds to cross the living area and enter the bedroom but it would only take half that for any competent killer to slit a sleeping throat. Andrew was already dead.

Except he wasn’t.

Neil ground to a stop, his automatic reflexes only just saving him from crashing into the twisting mass of limbs falling out of the bedroom. However, though he avoided the two men, he was not so lucky when it came to the wall – he hit the unforgiving surface face first. Sitting on the floor seemed very appealing in that moment, at least until his head stopped spinning. Or was it the room that was moving? Either way his legs weren’t obeying his commands very well, leading to a slow, undignified slide down the wall. Neil gathered his wits as the others struggled, using their distraction to plan his escape. After thirty seconds there was a loud shattering noise and the room returned to relative silence, with only harsh breathing to be heard.

If this was his first, or even tenth such experience he would have panicked but he’d been there before and he’d bought the t-shirt, in fact he’d bought an entire new wardrobe. There was no sense in waiting to check who won the scrimmage because if the wrong victor emerged those three seconds could cost him his life. Ignoring his dizziness, he pulled himself up onto his feet, bracing himself for a fight. He needn’t have bothered.

“I presume this is your fault then?” Andrew asked, his blank stare fixed on the body at his feet.

For somebody who just ambushed and killed an unexpected assassin, Andrew was awfully calm as he lit a cigarette. Neil didn’t buy it for a second, though he did slide his knives back into their sheaths. All but one, he wasn’t stupid.

“Well if we’re assigning blame he was a really bad assassin. Are you going to smoke that in here?”

“Yes I am. Now that’s true, however, if he was bad at his job somewhere in the Bahamas he wouldn’t have broken my coffee table now would he? Why is he here?”

Neil swallowed, a nervous tick left over from an unfortunate childhood. He’d mostly succeeded at squashing it but sometimes it was involuntary. Andrew’s eyes dropped to his neck at the movement though he didn’t comment on it.

“He was sent to kill me. I don’t know why he ended up here, my apartment is the one above you upstairs. You should be dead.”

“Disappointed?”

“I was merely stating a fact. You should be dead but here you are. How?”

Andrew’s grin turned him into a shark.

“I’m not that easy to kill.”

“Why not? By all means you should be.”

“Now now Mr Josten, that’s level seven backstory.”

“What?”

“It means I’m a light sleeper who doesn’t take kindly to idiots breaking into my apartment. Speaking of which, get out.”

Neil would be lying if he said he wasn’t taken aback. He didn’t particularly want to stay around Andrew any longer than he had to but he did want to know just how Andrew managed to emerge from the past ten minutes with barely a scratch. That and how he wasn’t rocking in the corner after killing somebody. It clearly wasn’t his first body.

“Did he puncture your eardrums when I wasn’t looking?” Andrew motioned impatiently at the door. “Because I will if you don’t move your ass.”

Neil walked out in lieu of an answer.

“Oh,” he popped his head back in a few seconds later, “if you leave the body I’ll come back tomorrow to get rid of it, don’t stress about it.”

He probably should have sounded a little less nonchalant while flouting his corpse disposal skills but Andrew had seen enough tonight that it probably wouldn’t make much of a difference. Neil could no longer see his face, the lack of light in the apartment and the hallway leaving the man shrouded in darkness despite the lack of blackout blinds. His stance was still irritatingly casual though, that much Neil could make out.

“Don’t bother,” said the shadowy figure, “I can get rid of my own demons.”

Neil scoffed automatically. How dramatic.

“Sure you can,” he lingered a second longer than he intended before turning. “Good night.”

“It sure is,” the reply came from behind him but this time Neil just continued to the stairs.

*********

It happened again a week later.

Neil knew something was going to happen on Thursday night; his usual mole slipped their code word into their weekly exchange. “Squirrel” meant Thursday – the words were connected by a pop culture chain stretching from Spongebob to Star Wars to Thor and from there the leap was obvious. There were many such chains for assorted scenarios but usually the day was enough. A constant worry nagged in the back of Neil’s mind that his father would change his tactics soon as it was obvious the multitude of assassins was never going to get rid of his son. That was a dangerous train of thought because it always led him to the same place; Nathan Wesninski didn’t want his son dead – yet.

He could have killed Neil within a week of his running away. Even if he overestimated Neil’s ability to cover his trail, Nathan had the resources available to hunt him down without breaking a sweat. Yet he didn’t. The first assassin was sent when Neil was fourteen. It was the worst fight of his life - he hadn’t been expecting the killer, he was tired, alone and weaker than he’d ever been since. He only managed two steps away from his first body before throwing up and only managed to keep his wits together long enough to hide the corpse before sitting numb in an alley for an undetermined amount of time.

The second came a month after and though he hadn’t known when the next hit would arrive, he was smart enough to expect it. The fight was easier because he wasn’t in shock and everything was just that bit more clinical. Feeling became less and less of a problem as the new status quo developed, one vanquished killer at a time.

It didn’t make sense. A fourteen year old shouldn’t have been that hard to kill and Neil was neither cocky nor suicidal enough to think himself undefeatable. His father was playing with him; that was the easy conclusion at which to arrive. It took a few years before his mind settled on a new theory – he was being tested, being trained for something. Nathan didn’t love him, there was no sentiment included in Neil’s logic – there were very few possible reasons why he was still alive and this made the most sense.

So he waited.

He fended off attacker after attacker. On his sixteenth birthday he received a message on his burner phone from a mysterious source. They messaged him once a week from that point on – no matter how often he changed his phone or his name they always caught up with him. As the assassins became more and more skilled his mole began to feed him details about their attacks. Neil still wasn’t sure of the sender’s identity but he wasn’t naive enough to think they were actually on his side – the most likely source was somebody in his father’s organisation. Nathan must have realised at some point that if he kept surprising Neil with assassins of increasing prowess, eventually his guard would falter and he’d be killed. So he had someone slip his son an ETA. If Neil died in a fight, well technically Nathan had given him a fair chance in this messed-up blood sport to which he was so partial and Neil wasn’t skilled enough to make the cut. The logic was clear.

So here he was, sitting outside his apartment in the dark at 03:57 on a Thursday morning waiting for someone to try and kill him. Thinking forward to his job interview that afternoon he almost wondered if it was worth letting them.

But then there was a faint rustle a few feet beneath him and it was just him, his knives and whatever poor soul had been volunteered for Nathan Wesninski’s weekly kamikaze run. Just two men and some sharp objects.

Until there were three.

Neil heard him coming and, assuming him a second assassin joining the fray, adjusted his stance to fight the two of them at once. He needn’t have bothered. The initial threat panicked (honestly where was his father finding these guys, they were so unprofessional), blindly thrusting a knife backwards as he realised they had company, not wanting to take his eyes off Neil to evaluate the development. It was actually a clever enough move, the knife was at head height and would have incapacitated any normal opponent. However, Andrew Minyard was five foot nothing and he rammed into the would-be killer with the strength of an ox. Neil neatly sidestepped the falling bodies in a nice parallel to their last encounter. He mentally congratulated himself.

The attacker looked a lot smaller in death. Neil found it oddly comforting. He couldn't pinpoint the exact moment when dead bodies became comforting rather than horrifying – maybe his fourth or fifth kill. It was hard to keep track.

“I had it under control,” he groused.

“I know,” Andrew replied without looking up from cleaning his knives. “But he woke me up.”

Neil watched him silently as he slid the weapon back into his sleeve, presumably into some form of sheath.

“If you’re so intent in playing a part in this routine then you can help me get him inside.” Neil opened the apartment door silently, keeping the lights off after a brief consideration.

“I don’t think I will.”

“You break it you buy it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Fine,” Neil snapped, “you kill my assassin you help me drag his body out of the open. I’ll clean the floor myself just help me get him off the landing.”

Andrew shrugged, kicking the door open wider and flicking on the lights, having clearly noted Neil’s decision to keep them off.

“I’ll supervise,” he drawled, patting the non-existent pockets of his sleepwear for cigarettes.

Neil muttered obscenities as he turned the corpse to give himself a better grip. Dead bodies were so awkward to manipulate. They looked like a person so it was natural to expect them to move like one. They didn’t.

“A bit to the left,” Andrew said indifferently.

“What?”

“Move him a bit to the left, otherwise he’ll hit off the skirting board and that’s one more thing for you to scrub. Or for you to overlook and suddenly somebody’s asking about the blood outside your apartment.”

“I’m not stupid.”

“You say that, yet this is the second hitman in about a week. Clearly you’ve done something to piss someone off. Another someone that is.”

It took Neil a moment to realise Andrew was referring to himself.

“How have I pissed you off, I’ve met you once?”

That got an honest to god chuckle out of Andrew. There was no mirth in it and if Neil was a normal person he’d have backed away slowly without making any sudden movements.

“You broke into my apartment, you made me have to buy another coffee table,” he listed exaggeratedly on his fingers, “you are _right this second_ keeping me from my bed. This is you pissing me off.”

“I notice _you indirectly caused an assassin to try and kill me_ isn’t on your list.”

“How observant. Now drag that body into your tacky blackout bunker so I can get you out of my sight. You’re unnecessary.”

“Yet here you are.”

Andrew turned and walked down the stairs without another glance. He flipped a middle finger over his shoulder and to Neil it felt like a victory.

*****

Neil may have been late for his interview but Andrew was waiting for him on a bench outside their building and it probably wasn’t a very good idea to leave him hanging. Neil usually didn’t mind bad ideas but this one felt especially dangerous. That didn’t mean he had to be civil about it.

“What?” he snapped once he reached the bench.

Andrew looked out of place in the sunlight. With his black clothing and pale body he belonged in the twilight, at the edge of a night. It was oddly disconcerting to see him on a bench surrounded by cherry blossoms. The day was particularly windy and every now and then one of the pink flowers would make a slow, uncontrolled descent from its branch to the ground – a serene plunge to death underfoot. The bench was littered with petals but Andrew’s shoulders were clean; almost as if the flowers couldn’t quite bring themselves to land on something so removed from everything they were.

“I’ve given it some thought and come to the conclusion that we are due a conversation,” Andrew said without preamble.

“Is that really necessary?”

“Yes.”

“Not now.”

Andrew nodded as if to confirm something to himself.

“Fine. Tonight then, unless you’ve got... plans.”

Plans meant a corpse at his feet and dark circles under his eyes.

“No. No plans for tonight.”

“Then it’s settled.” Andrew flashed an empty smile as he lit a cigarette, his garish _luck o’ the Irish_ lighter comically out of place against his monochrome figure. “Nine thirty, don’t be late but also don’t be early. Now get out of my sight.”

Five seconds ago Neil wanted nothing more than to be out of Andrew’s presence. He couldn’t place it but there was _something_ about the other man that got under his skin, that made him itch in an awful way. It wasn’t the obvious cause either, not the warnings their neighbours fitfully whispered to him, not the violence or the apathy. This was something else. If Andrew expected him to leave after a simple dismissal he was going to be disappointed.

Neil sat down on the other side of the bench.

Andrew ignored him as expected, finishing off his cigarette at a leisurely pace before standing up to leave without as much as a glance in Neil’s direction. He appeared completely at ease. If it was a front it was a very convincing one, though Neil didn’t think it was. The most likely explanation was simply that Andrew Minyard didn’t care.

*********

Andrew would want answers.

Neil had a story, actually several stories ready to go. He just needed to find the right one, the one that seemed grudgingly honest, the one that gave just enough after just the right amount of prompting. He had to go in seeming confident but not too cocky, he had to act like he had the perfect cover story. Andrew would instantly distrust him of course. So he would give in bit by bit with some prompting and probably some threats. Make it seem like Andrew was chipping away at his defences and reaching reality.

It needed to seem like Neil was giving up his truths as unwillingly as possible.

It didn’t quite work out that way.

Andrew’s apartment looked different during the day when he wasn’t bloodstained and his floor was free from corpses. Some part of Neil’s mind was impressed with the cleaning job – the replacement coffee table didn’t look too new and the floor was clean without being spotless – there were no suggestions of the violence that had occurred a mere week ago. Andrew hadn’t used Neil’s usual spot to get rid of the corpse – Neil had subtly checked during the week – but it was clear he knew what he was doing. This sort of cleaning job spoke of experience. Neil wondered if he wasn’t going to be the only one telling a story tonight.

“Drink?” Andrew asked in lieu of a greeting, gesturing at the sofa for Neil to sit as he moved towards the kitchen.

“No, I don’t drink.”

“Soda then.”

It wasn’t a question. Neil was instantly on his guard, not that he had been relaxed before.

“Sure,” Neil followed him out of the room, not willing to accept a drink prepared out of his sight.

By the looks of it Andrew knew exactly why he had company and it amused him. He pulled a can of soda from the fridge and opened it dramatically before placing it down in front of Neil who instantly reached past him to take a different can. He inspected it before deeming it acceptable. Andrew stared at him throughout the process, handing him a glass once he finished his inspection. Neil checked that as well, there was nothing suspicious about it other than the fact that the frosted bottom seemed more at home in the hand of an elderly person. Nothing in Andrew’s face betrayed amusement but Neil could sense it all the same.

“Whatever,” Andrew said eventually before pouring a healthy serving of whisky into a matching glass and leaning back against the counter top.

“No sofa?” Neil asked, not really caring either way.

“That’s too comfortable for this kind of thing. Plus we’ll be wanting more drinks and it’s quicker if you don’t have to make a journey to check that I’m not poisoning you.”

“It’s not poison I’m worried about.”

“Interesting.”

Silence reigned for a few minutes as they stared each other down - Neil sipped his drink carefully as Andrew cradled the whisky in his hand before finally speaking up.

“Whoever’s trying to kill you isn’t doing a very good job.”

Ah so he’d noticed. Neil mentally upped his estimation of the other man’s perception, not that it had been in the gutter to begin with.

“They’re not trying to kill me. If it happens it happens but that’s not their aim.”

Andrew nodded, taking another sip as he absorbed this.

“I suspected as much,” he said eventually. Neil couldn’t tell if he was lying and that in itself was disquieting. “Who’s behind the assassins?”

“No, it’s my turn,” Neil cut in. “You’ve disposed of bodies before.”

“That’s not a question.”

“It’s not. But you have.”

Andrew nodded slowly, his eyes not moving an inch from Neil’s as he downed the end of his drink. The stare only broke when he bent to open the fridge, thrusting a second can at Neil before refilling his own glass. Neil looked down at his original drink in surprise; he hadn’t realised it was empty. He accepted the replacement without comment.

“My father,” he offered, seeing as Andrew wasn’t going to offer any more information. “My father sends them. Last night was number eighty nine.”

“Why?”

“No. Why did you help me?”

“I told you, I didn’t do it to help you.”

“Then my question is void, I get another one.”

“That’s not my problem so no you don’t. How did it come to be that your father is sending you assassins?”

Damn, that was a good question. Andrew could have taken five or six turns to get the same amount of backstory that one demanded. He was good at this. He was more dangerous than he looked and that was saying something.

“My father,” Neil began, refilling his glass and taking a swig, “is not a nice man. He deals in properties except for when he doesn’t. He is fast and he is violent and if I stayed I would be the same. I don’t know why he sends them and I don’t know why he doesn’t just kill me. He clearly knows where I am and has some sort of plan going on but I don’t know what that is.”

Andrew said nothing, just watched him sip his drink for something to do. Then suddenly he lunged forward, clasping his hand over Neil’s mouth and pinching his nose.

The drink.

The drink was too sweet, it was far too sweet but he had checked it, he had _checked it_ and it was fine, the can was untouched. This shouldn’t be happening, his guard was  _up_  goddammit. He tried faking it, pretending to swallow but Andrew wasn’t buying it, just stared at him in that infuriatingly detached manner as Neil’s eyes streamed with frustration and betrayal, as his lungs burned and finally, eventually he was forced to swallow.

The second he was free he tried to retch it back up again.

“Not going to work,” Andrew said in a sing-song voice as he walked back to the living area. “It was in the first drink too, just far weaker so you wouldn’t notice. There’s too much in your system already.”

Why would Andrew leave if his plan had worked, why not question Neil before he– shit. The door.

As soon as the thought crossed Neil’s mine he heard the click of the lock, the sound of a key, the death toll of the deadlock.

There was nothing he could do, his head was already swimming, his legs were already a second behind his brain and the situation was only going to get worse.

Rough hands were on his shoulders guiding him to the sofa. A terrible thought crossed Neil’s mind as he tried and failed to squirm out of Andrew’s grasp but he was free a second later to collapse into the cushions, his mind a frantic mix of panic and relief. Not that. Please not that.

“Now,” began Andrew once he took a seat on the armchair opposite from where Neil’s face was pressed into the sofa cushions, his struggling having only served to tip him over. “Now, tell me what you know about the Moriyamas.”

Neil’s blood went cold, his eyes bulged.

“I don’t,” he whispered.

Andrew looked at him impassively.

“I don’t,” he parroted cruelly. “Your near stroke implies otherwise. What do you know about the Moriyamas? Don’t make me ask a third time.”

Neil was out of options. He couldn’t tell Andrew who his father was, not the truth. However, he couldn’t formulate a lie in this state - he could barely string a sentence together. There was no way to leave and no way to talk himself out. Drooping was all he was capable of and even that was a push.

He felt Andrew’s hands push him into a seated position, some part of his brain noting the drool escaping his mouth.

“Tell me the truth,” Andrew demanded again, harder this time.

There was no time left, if he didn’t do something now it would all be out of control and he wouldn’t be able to moderate what he said. His eyes searched frantically for a solution but the sparse furnishings offered nothing. The room contained two sofas, an armchair, a television and a coffee table, not exactly a menagerie.

Neil’s eyes focused on the coffee table and he made a desperate decision, as calculated as he could manage in his current state. The last of his muscular control was used to propel his body forward off the sofa and he fell gracelessly, desperately hoping he hadn’t misjudged the angle and wasn’t about to kill himself.

There was a flash of gold _something_ as he fell, then his head hit the coffee table and there was nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm on tumblr at [palmettostatevixens](http://www.palmettostatevixens.tumblr.com).


	2. Pros and Concussions

There were too many faces when Neil woke up.

There were more faces than he expected and more than he wanted. He wanted zero, he wanted his world to be face-free so their presence was too much. He couldn’t quite tell if he was making sense – his head was fuzzy and it was sore and everything was a little bit out of place and it was as if he was experiencing the world through a kaleidoscope but a really bad one that tasted sour. No that wasn’t right, you couldn’t taste a kaleidoscope. Could you?

Everything was too bright, it was white bright, it was right in his eyes. Was he dying? He wasn’t sure, he couldn’t tell, he closed his eyes again and hoped for all the good it would do him. Then all of a sudden the light was gone and it was normal and his eyes reopened, blinking away the spots and finally he could focus and he saw who was looming over him, saw the source of the light.

Andrew.

Neil swung with every ounce of desperation he could muster. It was not enough. Sure, his fist connected with Andrew but it was Neil who ended up falling, who ended up slumped against the sofa, who ended up closing his eyes and slipping away.

*****

When he next woke the haze was gone.

The people were not.

Neil had enough of his wits left to keep his eyes closed this time instead of lurching up and revealing himself to the world. He wasn’t back to normal yet; there was still an uncomfortable _edge_ to his thoughts or, more accurately, a lack of edge.

He took a minute to listen to the muttered voices and concluded that the mystery people were scattered evenly enough throughout the room. Ideally they’d all be as far from the door as possible huddled in a corner all impeding their own pursuit but there was a saying just out of reach - something about beggars and choosing - and Neil was running out of time.

He waited until most of the voices had moved away from his route to the door and made his move. If he could only get outside then he’d be gone; with open space ahead of him Neil was unstoppable.

However, it was not to be. After a mental countdown, during which it took him a worrying amount of time to find the right numbers, he vaulted, or rather, fell over the back of the sofa. He made it two feet towards the door before stopping in defeat.

“Did you really think it would be that easy?” Andrew drawled from his position by the door as Neil slowed to a halt, his pulse racing after the adrenaline. He wasn’t stupid enough to think he was getting out of the room empty handed, especially with his head as it was.

“Sit down if you know what’s good for you,” said someone behind Neil. He didn’t move, just continued staring at Andrew as if he could move the man by sheer force of will.

“Oh don’t worry he doesn’t,” Andrew said, returning the stare and somehow managing to make Neil understand every inch of his defeat. Why had he been stupid enough to trust Andrew even a small amount? The only concrete information Neil had on him involved knives and corpses. That should have been an immediate red flag. Why hadn't it been a red flag?

There were hands on his shoulders guiding him to the sofa and Neil instantly flashed back to earlier that day and Andrew doing the same thing. Was it an hour ago? Two? Or much more than that? He couldn’t see past the curtains on the window to check the sky and the head wound wasn’t kind to his perception.

He finally looked up at the owner of the guiding hands and recoiled in horror. The head wound was very serious because Andrew had lead him to the couch but Andrew was back there, there were two Andrews.

No.

The logical part of his brain kicked in after far too long, this Andrew was different. Or actually, it wasn’t Andrew. Most likely a twin unless he’d been unconscious for years and cloning technology was much more accessible. Neil tried to understand past the rapidly-returning fog in his brain.

His neck creaked as he turned again to get a proper look at Andrew, the real Andrew. He needed to be sure, needed to believe he wasn’t gone a bit further than he should be.

“Oh Neil, stop looking at me like that, this is Aaron my professional impersonator. All famous people have them.”

“Infamous.”

“That was an exceptionally weak response. Don’t let it happen again.”

Neil didn’t understand another word. Andrew’s mouth was moving and another Andrew was keeping him upright and the haze was back and he was gone.

*****

Neil had never been hungover due to the virtue of not drinking but he very much imagined this was what it felt like. His mouth felt like death and his head was splitting, even if he disregarded the pain coming from the cut on his forehead.

There wasn’t an inch of moisture in his entire being as he struggled into a seated position. He could hear the people talking, their voices mercifully low. They probably weren’t friendly but they’d been there for a while and hadn’t slit his throat so he figured he wasn’t in any immediate danger. That was good news as he doubted he could run if he tried – even the act of standing was likely beyond him.

Their voices stopped then started again so Neil knew they had seen him rise. He presumed they were discussing him though he couldn’t make out their words, only disjointed phrases like _thirty seconds_ and _you’re on._ Hopefully one of them would see fit to bring him a glass of water though he’d nearly settle for one of Andrew’s drugged sodas at this point.

That brought it all back.

“What the fuck?” he yelled, though it was really more of a croak.

It had the desired reaction despite his vocal chord’s betrayal. He heard a yelp and several curses before Andrew – and this time he was sure it was Andrew, the twin in the background looked far less immediately dangerous – stomped into his field of vision.

“Sleeping beauty finally wakes.”

“You fuck,” Neil struggled to stand up despite previous inhibitions. What could he say, it appeared Andrew made him go the extra mile. “You drugged me, I have a bloody head wound because of you!”

“That’s right it sure was bloody, you stained my carpet, I’m going to have to clean it.”

“I stained your carpet? That’s what you’re focusing on? I have a fucking head wound, which I’m pretty sure isn’t helped by the fact that you drugged me and then don’t forget-” he was forced to stop talking as his legs gave out after approximately fifteen seconds.

“Andrew not now,” said the twin as he watched Neil struggle.

“Fine, patch him up,” Andrew didn’t spare his brother a glance. “Or don’t, I don’t care. I have what I want, I’m leaving.”

“Andrew you can’t leave us here alone, this is your apartment,” somebody said softly from outside Neil’s field of vision. He wasn’t about to take his eyes off Andrew to check the source.

“It is? Then why are you all here? I believe I asked for two of you.” Andrew’s sarcasm was piercing but the voice wasn’t affected and the reply came in the same gentle tone.

“I’m making some coffee. Do you want some?”

“Yes,” Andrew said bluntly, tearing his eyes away from Neil and walking into the kitchen without another word.

The tension dropped by a noticeable amount once he was gone, allowing the others to rush at Neil. It was not a pleasant development; the world was still moving a little bit too fast for his brain, though he was fairly confidant of his hold on consciousness for the time being.

“Stay back,” warned the twin, only half sounding like he cared. It was a major improvement from Andrew whatever the case. “I’m pretty sure most of that shit earlier was due to the drugs but his head is still a problem and it’s hard to concentrate with all of you breathing down my neck.”

That was more words than Neil had ever heard Andrew say in one go. Clearly there were some differences between the two.

“Okay,” Aaron began as he turned to Neil, his posture and voice undergoing a complete transformation into that of recitation. “I’m going to feel around the cut for any swelling or bumps. I’m also going to feel your entire scalp because Andrew said you only hit your forehead off the coffee table but I don’t believe a word out of his mouth on the issue so I’m going to check anyway. Do you understand?”

Neil nodded.

“Can you answer verbally?”

“Yes.”

It took about twenty minutes of prodding, questions, lights in eyes and walking in a (mostly) straight line before Aaron was satisfied.

“I'm pretty sure you’re only mildly concussed which is a miracle because coffee tables have been known to kill people. I can’t be completely certain because of the drugs and ideally you’d be given a CT scan but for now you’ll be fine just don’t do anything stupid or dangerous because you’ll probably be groggy for a while. Don’t sleep until you usually would,” he rattled off. “Now it’s half four so I’m leaving to get some sleep.” He stood up and left the apartment without another word or a backward glance. Neil watched him go. Maybe the twins had more in common than he had thought.

“Don’t mind him, he’s actually the nicer twin as I’m sure you’ve realised by now,” a voice drew Neil’s attention back to the matter at hand.

There were two people looking down at him, a girl and a guy. The girl’s wild hair and big eyes made her look soft but Neil wasn’t fooled, he could see the steel in her as she looked him over. The guy was the opposite – he was tall and built but he was staring at Neil with a worried expression, playing with the hem of his shirt absent-mindedly.

“So we know Aaron said you aren’t dying but are you okay?” the guy asked.

“I’m fine,” Neil replied curtly. “Who are you and what the hell is going on?”

The man sighed and the pair sat down on the sofa opposite Neil, the same sofa Andrew was sitting in as Neil lost control. With some effort he managed to pull his thoughts back to the present as they began to talk.

“I’m Dan,” the girl said, “and this is Matt. We’re... Well, we know Andrew.”

Not friends then. Then why were they here, why were they called to the scene? Andrew said he asked for two people and his twin filled one spot but who was the other? It wasn't the person with the soft voice and it probably wasn't these two either - they were clearly  _Dan and Matt_ as opposed to  _Dan_ and  _Matt_ so he wouldn't have asked for just one of them. Neil couldn't quite wrap his head around the situation.

“We’re not sure why Andrew drugged you to be honest. It’s happened before but there was reason for that. The two of us have... well we know what it can do to you.”

They were drugged too at some point. What did they mean by _there was reason for that_? There was a leap of logic just outside of his reach no matter how much his mind struggled.

“I’m going to repeat my question,” Matt said when Neil didn’t reply.

“I’m going to repeat my answer, I’m fine. Why is he allowed to do this, why do you let him?”

Dan laughed but there was no humour in it.

“He didn’t exactly announce what he was planning on doing did he? He doesn’t talk to us, I doubt even Aaron knew, though maybe Kevin did.”

“Kevin?” Neil’s head snapped up at the name. He had an awful suspicion. There was one Kevin he couldn’t bump into, the one Kevin that couldn’t be here, not if the universe was kind.

“Kevin Day,” Dan answered him, signing his death warrant. “Kevin Day as in Riko and Kevin, American icons,” her tone changed slightly as she rattled off their unofficial title.

Neil knew Kevin. He and Riko Moriyama were huge, maybe the most well-known pair in America and only slightly less worldwide. Everybody knew their so-called origin story – Kevin’s mother died when he was young, he was taken in by Riko and his uncle. They had the perfect formula for public success; as children they were adorable and clever and now, as adults, they had flourished into a household name. They were everything the public wanted – rich, good-looking and always available for consumption. They had everything from their own cereal to a stake in a private spaceflight company. On the outside they were perfect; but their idyllic front masked some seedy connections - namely the Moriyamas.

The Moriyamas were big fish in his father’s business, perhaps the only equal Nathan Wesninski had. Neil wasn't sure how much Kevin knew; they had had only met once when they were both much younger. Nathan had been considering a brand deal with them, something to do with his property business, though there were undoubtedly other less-legal intentions. It was right before Neil had left and they were only together for a few hours but there was no guarantee Kevin wouldn’t remember him.

“I have to go,” he mumbled. This time he felt a lot steadier on his feet as he lunged off the sofa and turned to the door, only to see- shit.

Kevin Day did not look impressed. He was leaning against the wall in a near-perfect mirror of Andrew’s earlier stance, looking simultaneously bored and incredibly intense. There was no flash of recognition in his eyes but Neil didn’t look like Nathaniel and he couldn’t expect that to last if they had to talk.

Kevin said nothing, merely raised an eyebrow and motioned at Neil to sit back down.

Neil was powerless in that moment, desperately tempering down a need to run. He flopped back down, angling himself so Kevin was in the corner of his vision, not wanting to let the man out of his sight. This was a problem but if he kept his wits about him it would not be a fatal one. Once he was allowed to leave he would grab his stuff and go; he’d be a few states away before anyone even noticed he was gone.

Dan and Matt stared at him with barely concealed suspicion. Had that been there before or was it a new development? Neil’s head still wasn’t feeling its best and he never received that glass of water. It was more than a general run-down feeling, at times it seemed like he was swimming and he was incapable of concentrating fully on anything for longer than a few seconds. The same wasn’t true of the others, as they studied him without speaking. It took Neil a few seconds but he realised it wasn’t suspicion but concern. Somehow that was worse. Suspicion he could deal with, he could make himself smaller or bigger depending on the circumstances, he could run or he could fight. It had been far too long since he had been met with concern, he didn’t know how to react.

“I think I’m going to go now,” Neil said eventually, uncomfortable under their stares.

“Yeah good idea,” Dan agreed, breaking their stare as she stood up. “Renee, Andrew, we’re going!” she yelled at the kitchen.

“Is Andrew coming back?” Matt asked her.

“Yes,” Andrew replied as he entered the room, not pausing on his way to the door except to push Kevin out of his way.

“Okay well Neil can ride with us and we’ll see you at the tower,” Matt called after him.

“No,” Andrew stopped dead just outside the door. “He’s coming with us.”

Matt and Dan shared a look.

“Is that really the best idea?” Dan asked cautiously.

“It doesn’t matter, I’ve decided. Neil hurry up, if you walk fast all of your vomit will be outside my apartment.”

Neil was confused for a second before it clicked - they expected him to go with them. He laughed internally at the presumption. That was not about to happen.

“That wasn’t a joke,” Andrew said, making the simple statement sound like a threat. Apparently Neil had actually laughed out loud.

“I’m not coming with you,” he tried to sound commanding. Whether he succeeded or not, he couldn’t tell.

“Yes you are. Now move.” Probably not then.

Dan sighed as Andrew walked out of sight, her eyes on Neil.

“You don’t really think you have a choice do you?” she asked. “You’re concussed and you live alone, we have to keep an eye on you for a while. Though I’d prefer if you came with us to be honest,” she gestured between herself and Matt and then back at the soft girl, Renee, who had yet to say a word to Neil.

“Go with Andrew. It’ll be worse if you make him wait,” she broke her silence, the softness of her voice at odds with the way her eyes made Neil’s skin crawl. “You too Kevin,” she looked over Neil’s shoulder to Kevin, who was rubbing his arm where Andrew pushed him.

“I’m not going with you,” Neil repeated, more forcefully this time.

There was movement behind him but Neil didn’t turn, not wanting to give Kevin another look at his face.

“You are,” his voice was much closer than Neil anticipated.

“I’m not.”

“You are. We both know why Andrew asked you here today. You will come with us.”

Neil’s blood ran cold. He couldn’t tell the extent of the damage from that one statement but Kevin definitely knew something about him.

“You know?” Matt rounded on Kevin, anger in his eyes.

“I know why he’s here and you know Andrew’s reason is a good one.”

“Do I?”

Neil still refused to turn around so he didn’t know what Kevin did to make Matt visibly stiffen and Dan frown.

“Go,” Renee prompted from behind them, her expression serious.

Neil went.

*********

Even in the dark Andrew’s car looked expensive. It was conspicuous and hinted at the luxury of never having to run - Neil allowed himself a moment of envy, blaming it on the concussion.

Kevin hadn’t said a word to him on the way to the car. Andrew’s apartment was on the ground floor so it didn’t take them long to get out of the building but it still felt like an eternity as they both steadfastly ignored each other.

Kevin took the passenger seat, leaving Neil to sit in the back. He slid inside; the dark interior of the car seemed like a tomb, a feeling that was reinforced by the night sky outside. It felt like the stupidest decision he had ever made. Andrew was sitting in the driver’s seat staring straight ahead and didn’t look back until Neil found a comfortable position and stopped fidgeting.

“Who are you?” Andrew asked, his eyes looking more intense than Neil had ever seen them.

He gulped. Even though he had been drugged earlier, this situation felt a lot more dangerous.

“My name is Neil Josten,” he said slowly. “That wasn’t always my name but it is now. The other ones don’t matter, all of those people might as well be dead.”

Andrew nodded, though whether he accepted the answer Neil couldn’t begin to guess.

“What do you know about the Moriyamas? Don’t bother playing coy.”

Kevin shifted in his seat almost imperceptibly.

“I know they’re Yakuza. I know they’re incredibly dangerous and I know I don’t want to get on their bad side.”

“Incorrect,” Andrew taunted.

“What?”

“You don’t want them to know you exist,” Kevin filled in the blank for him.

Andrew’s hand found its way onto Kevin’s shoulder. It looked painful. “Kevin here would know all about that,” he said. His eyes never left Neil’s face.

Nobody spoke for a few seconds. The pause was as full of tension as Neil had ever known. After what felt like forever, Kevin seemed to shake himself out of a stupor and turned to face the front of the car, his face out of Neil’s sight.

“What do you know about Riko Moriyama?” he asked in an almost-whisper.

Neil took a moment to choose which truths to tell.

“I know a bit,” he shrugged. Andrew’s eyes dropped to follow the movement and his frown deepened. Neil instantly regretted his nonchalance but kept talking. If he could keep acting like he he was really concussed Andrew could possibly be tricked into believing he was telling the truth. “I know the usual stuff of course, the life story of Riko and Kevin.” His voice was mocking and there was no hiding Kevin’s flinch this time. “Put together as kids, America’s favourite celebs, blah blah blah.”

Kevin seemed to be holding his breath, though Neil couldn’t be sure.

“I know something happened last month between you two. I don’t know what. Now you haven’t been seen in public since then and Riko looks pissed.”

“That’s true,” Andrew nodded. “You still haven’t explained how you’re messed up in all of this though.”

“You haven’t asked.”

“I’m asking now. Share the story with the class.”

Neil took a deep breath, mentally preparing himself for his performance.

“I told you my father is not a nice man,” he began, looking down at his hands to make himself seem smaller. “He’s violent, he has a temper and he had a perfect punching bag.”

“Had?” Andrew didn’t miss a thing.

“Had,” Neil repeated, looking him in the eyes again. “I left. I may have been a kid but I knew what he was doing. Not all the details, mind you, just a vague picture. He smuggles stuff around under the guise of being a property dealer. Money, drugs, people, he does it all. He’s not huge but he’s a big enough fish that he works for the Moriyamas directly. That’s how I know.”

Andrew looked at him for a long moment, evaluating his story, weighing up Neil’s life in his hands. Neil had no doubt that Andrew could kill him if he was deemed a liar, if he seemed more dangerous than he was worth. He just had to hope his story worked, that Andrew believed his scraps of truth. He had given up more than a few scraps, the only major omission was the true extent of his father’s power. Nathan didn’t work for the Moriyamas, he was their equal.

“Kevin,” Andrew prompted the other man back into the conversation.

“What?”

“Do you believe our young escapee here?”

“I don’t think he’s lying but I can’t be sure. Who’s your father?”

That was the one question he couldn’t answer. Neil hadn’t yet figured out exactly where Kevin fell in all of this. Would he know enough about the Moriyama’s dealings to recognise Nathan’s name? Could Neil take the risk, could he roll that particular dice with so much at stake?

“No,” he made his decision. “It’s my turn to ask questions. What are you doing here?” Redirection might work.

Kevin seemed unsure though it was obvious he was trying to hide it. He looked to Andrew, silently asking for help. None came. That was interesting, it seemed as if Andrew was willing to protect Kevin but wouldn’t fight his battles for him. Neil wasn’t sure what to do with that information.

It took a moment but Kevin visibly steeled himself and leaned into the backseat to look Neil right in the eyes.

“Riko is out of control,” he said carefully. “I thought he had sense, I thought he knew there was a line somewhere but he never stops. He... Let’s just say he did something I cannot forgive. I’m here because I can’t stand to be with him anymore.”

“Is it safe here?”

Once again Kevin looked at Andrew. This time Andrew acknowledged him, meeting his gaze.

“I’m safer here than anywhere else but that’s not saying much. It’s just a matter of time before he finds me and I have no doubt he’ll try to kill me. He’ll probably succeed.”

Kevin didn’t sound overly sad about the fact. Anger flooded Neil’s system; how dare he not fight, how dare he not use every inch of his considerable power to survive?

“I’ll rephrase because I don’t think you understood what I was asking. I don’t give a shit about you. Am I safe here?” he snapped.

Kevin stole another look towards the driver’s seat but Andrew had taken to studying Neil.

“Not from your father’s men but the Moriyamas couldn’t give a shit about you.”

“I stole money from my father before I left. Probably Moriyama money.”

Kevin waved his hand in dismissal. “Trust me, your father paid back every cent out of his own pocket without telling them. He wants you dead but they don’t know anything about you. He probably even told them you died so they wouldn’t think you were a loose end. Trust me if the Moriyamas knew about you you’d be dead by now, there’s no way you’d have made it this far all on your own.”

“You did.”

“I’ve been gone for a month and the jury’s still out on whether I’ll make it through another. You’ve been on the run for years. Plus I’m not alone.”

Neil was overcome with a sudden wave of intense jealousy. Kevin was beaten, a husk of the man Neil would have expected but even now he had people in his corner, he wasn’t left to fend for himself. It was maddening and it was all Neil wanted. It was all Neil could never have.

Andrew studied Neil for one last moment before turning back around and starting the engine.

“I’ve heard enough,” he said. “Let’s get back to the Tower.”

Neil panicked, lunging for the door. It was locked.

“You can go if you want,” Andrew told him without turning. “I won’t chase you and I won’t kill you. But first you have to come back to the tower and play nice with the concerned citizens. I’m not having them on my ass because of you.”

“Am I supposed to believe that? Am I supposed to believe I’m safe just because you say so?” Neil scoffed.

Andrew twisted so that his face was inches from Neil's, hand in his collar, bringing Neil down to his eye level.

“Yes. Yes you are supposed to believe me. If I wanted you dead I’ve had a million opportunities to kill you in the past ten minutes. I’m finding it hard to believe that someone as stupid as you has survived this long, you came into my car for fuck’s sake but today’s your lucky day because I’m not out for your blood - yet. So buckle up and stop pissing me off. You’re safe with me for the time being whether you believe me or not.”

Neil snapped his buckle into place, more than a little shaken.

Not a word was spoken the entire journey.

*****

The Tower, as Andrew had dubbed it, was an empty apartment block. There was nothing in the exterior to suggest it was inhabited - it was run down and boarded up for the most part. If it wasn’t for Neil’s unusually suspicious manner and if he hadn’t been actively looking out for something he would probably have missed it. It looked abandoned and ready for demolition or refurbishment – that was not the case.

“Clever,” he admitted to nobody in particular.

Kevin seemed to think it was directed at him and grunted in response.

“Does nobody see you come and go?”

“The bottom two floors are used as a parking lot with a pedestrian entrance at the front and back,” Andrew supplied.

“That’s not very secure.”

“We don’t live on the bottom two floors.”

That was true. Once the car was parked Neil was led to a decrepit set of elevators. Nothing happened when Kevin pressed the button; no lights, no beeps, nothing. Yet after a few seconds the doors slid open and the three men stepped wordlessly into the box.

The hallway at the top was completely at odds to the building’s exterior. That’s not to say it was decadent or luxurious but there were clearly people living in the space. It had an immediate aura of life about it.

“The others will want to talk to you,” Kevin told him.

Neil chose to ignore him as his eyes scanned his surroundings for exits. There weren’t any obvious ones. His skin was crawling with how wrong this felt, walking straight into unfamiliar territory without an exit plan, his head still slightly fuzzy. If it wasn’t for Andrew’s assurance he would never have agreed to this. The fact that he was still alive after everything that happened in the past few hours meant that none of these people were immediately going to kill him. Unless it was a trap, unless they were leading him farther away from safety, unless, unless, unless. A sick feeling swirled in his gut. _No_ , he had made it this far and he had to believe he was safe, he had to believe he had some semblance of control. Panicking would get him nowhere. That didn’t mean he was going to play nice but he would at least cooperate so as not to get on Andrew’s bad side. Well, no more than he already was.

“Kevin!” Neil was drawn out of his thoughts by a shout coming from one of the rooms at the end of the hallway.

They marched onward, Neil very much feeling like he was going into battle. There were more people than Neil expected waiting for them in what appeared to be a living area. He recognised a few of the faces from earlier that night but the rest of the people sprawled across the sofas were new and very few of them appeared friendly. Dan and Matt each offered him a weak smile, Aaron appeared bored and Renee looked at him coldly but without the outright hostility radiating at him from all other angles.

“He’s not a threat,” Andrew walked past them all and through another door without looking at anybody directly.

Neil noticed one of the faces softening marginally.

“What does he know?” The question came from a suspicious looking blonde girl beside Renee.

“The works,” Kevin answered her, seeing that Andrew wasn’t going to. “He won’t be trouble, he’s only here because he’s concussed and needs someone to make sure he stays awake for a few hours.”

“I’d be happy to distract him,” one of the men piped up.

Aaron hit him. Neil was grudgingly thankful.

“Nicky shut up,” Dan said. “Neil we’re sorry again about Andrew and the drugs, though I doubt he was expecting you to knock yourself out. You were never in any actual danger if what Kevin says is true and you aren’t a threat. But if you know the situation Kevin here is in then you understand why we couldn’t have you running about without knowing your intentions.”

“It would have been safer for you if you’d let me be, I wouldn’t have known Kevin was even here if he hadn’t shown up.”

“Andrew couldn’t take that risk,” said Renee. “This way you know we’re here too and won’t get too spooked if you see anything you’re not supposed to.”

“He’s the one who spooked Andrew from what I’ve heard,” Kevin muttered. His voice was loud enough that everyone in the room could make it out but there was no way Andrew would be able to hear from behind a wall.

Matt snorted. “I wouldn’t bet on that, I’ve yet to see him anything other than pissed off or angry.”

“You’re not going to either,” Aaron said. Neil had started referring to Aaron as _the twin_ in his head.

“I thought you were going to sleep?” Neil asked him, at a loss for anything else to say.

“We thought it would be best if we were all here to greet you,” Renee answered for him. 

Neil tentatively took a seat on a free armchair. Dan, Matt, Renee and the man who spoke up earlier seemed to accept his presence at Andrew’s word. Aaron and Kevin seemed ambivalent if slightly pissed off. They weren’t actively glaring at him though, unlike the final two people in the room, the woman sitting beside Renee and a man squashed between her and the edge of a sofa.

“How’s your head?” Aaron barked without an ounce of concern in his voice.

“It’s okay enough now, I just have a headache at this stage,” Neil answered honestly. “I don’t think the not-sleeping order is very relevant seeing as I was unconscious for a few hours.”

“Better not to take the chance though, right?” Renee technically phrased it as a question but Neil knew when he was being put in his place.

“Fine but I have some questions.”

“We expected that,” Matt nodded seriously. “Ask away though we probably won’t answer everything.”

“Should we introduce ourselves?” asked the man beside Aaron. Dan had referred to him as Nicky earlier.

“Oh yeah,” Matt laughed. “Sorry. You already know Dan, Renee and I, then Kevin and the twins obviously. I guess Nicky’s already been introduced.” Nicky waved cheerfully. “So we’re just left with Allison and Seth,” he ended with a gesture towards the last – still glaring – pair. They didn’t acknowledge Neil except perhaps to deepen their frowns. It didn’t feel as much of a victory as when Andrew did it, though it was slightly less dangerous.

“Why are you all here?” Neil thought it best to jump right in.

“We’re here,” Dan began slowly, glancing around as if to reassure the others, “because our lives all went to shit. This is a...a safe house of sorts for people like us. We don’t want any trouble here, we’re just trying to get back on our feet.”

“People like us?”

“People with bad lives and shitty luck.”

Neil nodded, taking that in.

“Then why all the secrecy?”

Dan’s eyes flicked to Kevin. “We’d rather certain people didn’t know where we were.”

Riko. That made sense, he probably wouldn’t hold back if he knew they were sheltering his target.

“But I’m okay to just walk away?” Neil wasn’t quite ready to believe there was no catch. These people were obviously in some deep shit and paranoid out of their minds, though they clearly had their reasons if Kevin’s story alone was anything to go by. Their connection to the Moriyamas, paired with Andrew’s proficiency in killing people made them a dangerous bunch to be around. He was finding it hard to accept that they were just going to let him go.

“Andrew said you’re not a threat and Kevin seems to agree. As long as you stay out of our hair we’ll stay out of yours. Care to tell us why you caught the Monster’s eye in the first place?”

She didn’t know about the assassins. That meant the rest of them didn’t know. Clearly they weren’t very close knit if Andrew hadn’t clued them in on the situation, though they seemed to accept his judgement without question.

“I’ll explain later,” Kevin said once it became clear Neil wasn’t going to offer the information willingly.

Dan opened her mouth but before she could say anything Andrew returned, drawing every eye in the room to him and the mug he held in his hand.

“Drink this,” he thrust the mug at Neil once he was within reach.

Neil almost laughed.

“Are you serious? You honestly think I’m going to touch anything you give me?”

Andrew’s brows furrowed.

“It’s a tea.”

“So you say,” Neil crossed his arms in refusal.

Andrew stared at him, silently taking in his defensive posture. After a moment he lifted the mug to his own lips and took three short gulps. He slammed the mug down on the arm of the chair, sloshing some over the sides and onto Neil’s arm. It took all of his limited concentration not to flinch.

“Drink it,” he grunted, wiping his mouth violently with the back of his hand.

Neil picked up the warm mug but didn’t drink from it. The room was silent again as he studied Andrew for a few minutes waiting for any sign of a drug to appear. When none did, he tentatively lifted the mug and took a sip. It was lemon tea.

 _No caffeine_ his mind noted dully, the fuzziness mostly worn off.

“Drink it so your headache goes away and you can leave.” If it was anybody else that would almost sound caring but Neil knew better - Andrew just wanted him gone.

Neil did as instructed.

“I really do have to go, I have to water my plants.”

Andrew’s gaze turned sharp, though he kept his mouth shut. For that Neil was grateful. He really did need to leave, he was expecting a message from his source in about an hour and he liked to check them as soon as possible in case there was any time-sensitive information. However, he also wanted to get away from the group, not wanting to answer any awkward questions about his own life but equally dreading any small talk.

“I’m going too, I’ll drive you back,” Andrew said.

The room looked at him in surprise.

“Andrew are you sure he should be on his own?” Matt sounded almost worried.

“If he dies it’s no skin off our backs. He’s a grown man he can make his own decisions and we don’t owe him anything.”

Neil nodded in support. “I need to go. I’m fine.”

“Alright, whatever you say I guess,” Dan shrugged.

“But-” Matt began only for Dan to cut him off.

“He said he’s fine. Andrew’s right, he’s not one of us, he can do what he wants.”

Matt settled back in uneasy acceptance.

Neil didn’t give anyone else time to object, as unlikely as that was. He stood up and walked out the door without a backward glance, hoping Andrew would follow him because he had no idea where he was. He heard footsteps behind him and slowed his pace to let the other man catch up.

They didn’t speak until Andrew’s car peeled into the parking lot of their apartment block ten minutes later when Neil was suddenly struck with a question.

“Wait why are you still living here if you’ve decided I’m not a threat?”

“You have an awfully high opinion of yourself if you think I moved here to check up on you.”

“Didn’t you?”

“No.”

Neil had been sure he was right but apparently Andrew had other reasons. That was one less thing to worry about, he had been wondering how they knew he was coming.

“I’m still here because I’m still not sure about you.”

“You told the others back there that I wasn’t a problem.”

“Oh no, I told them you weren’t a threat. You are very much still a problem.”

“Why? Just go back to the Tower or whatever it’s called and I won’t bother you. What’s the point in staying?”

“You don’t have any plants.” It took Neil a moment to realise that wasn’t an answer and Andrew was simply changing the topic of conversation.

“I said that to get out of there,” he replied slowly, wondering where Andrew was taking this.

“It seemed urgent.”

“Yeah. I wanted to leave.”

“Why?” Andrew’s voice was bored but vicious nonetheless.

“Like I said, I wanted to.”

“You’re lying.”

“Why didn’t you tell them about the assassins?” Neil changed tack.

“They didn’t need to know. Why did you want to leave so badly?”

“I don’t like new social situations.”

“Sarcasm does not befit you.”

“That’s a pity.”

“Fine, I’ll ask a different question. How do you know when people are coming to kill you?”

Neil’s blood ran cold.

“What?”

“You heard me. I wasn’t sure after the first night because you could have heard the same noise that I did. Unlikely if you weren’t already awake but that could also be a coincidence. The second night made a coincidence even less likely but still not impossible. But then outside the apartments when we made our... appointment. You said there would be no killer that night. You know when they’re coming. How?”

Neil gaped for a moment in stunned silence. This wasn’t the first time he had underestimated Andrew Minyard but this was by far the most surprising. Neil hadn’t even noticed his slip by the cherry blossoms, yet Andrew had taken his mistake and pieced together the truth. It was impressive and Neil felt a drop of fear lodge in his stomach. He was playing with fire.

“Somebody tells me,” he whispered. Now was not the time to lie.

“Who?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how they know how to contact me, I don’t know who they are and I have no idea why they’re doing it.”

“No idea? I don’t quite believe that you’ve never thought about it.”

“Fine. I think it’s someone in my father’s organisation. It makes sense seeing as they know when the attacks are.”

Andrew nodded. “It does. You mentioned other names. What are you actually called?”

“I... I don’t want to say. It’s not important.”

“It is. You practically pissed yourself earlier when Kevin asked.”

“It’s not important to you.”

“How many?”

“What?”

“How many names?”

Neil swallowed. “Seventeen.” He flinched as the car doors unlocked. “Does Kevin know?”

“He doesn’t know who you are. He’s still too distracted by his break-up to pick holes in your neat little story.”

“Does he know about the mole?”

Andrew looked at him for a long moment then twitched his head almost as if he was silently talking to himself.

“No,” he answered eventually.

Andrew shifted in his seat as Neil went to open the door.

“Neil,” he checked to make sure Neil was listening. “Make a decision tonight. Either run or trust me. Those are your only choices.”

Neil nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“Get out of my car.”

Dawn was fast approaching as Neil walked toward the entrance to the building, the sun’s light just beginning to show over the skyline. It felt like much more than one night had passed since he was last in his apartment – over the space of a few hours his life had shifted and his safety was more perilous than he would have liked. He had made his choice, he wasn’t going to run. Really he had made the choice the first night with Andrew. His younger self would have run right then, would have been miles away before daybreak but he had chosen to stay, he had chosen to stick around and ride it out. He was stronger now, he could defend himself from this - whatever  _this_ turned out to be.

He only wished his mind would stop supplying him with the phrase _famous last words_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate chapter title: Kate takes liberties with head trauma.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I'm on tumblr at [palmettostatevixens](http://www.palmettostatevixens.tumblr.com).


	3. Seven Days of Strength Makes One Weak

Life did as life tends to do; it moved on.

Neil was still unemployed but he wasn’t particularly sad about it. It wasn’t that he intentionally bombed his interviews but if a few mistakes happened to be made, well, he was only human. It was just for appearances anyway, to be seen making an effort even if nobody appeared to be looking. He didn’t exactly need the money. It almost made him miss the days when he had to enrol in a school to appear normal. That had come with its own set of challenges of course – in those days he was much less of a fighter and he often ended up going to school covered in bruises and cuts that were hard to explain. It meant he rarely stayed in one place for more than a month or so – even the least observant of teachers tended to notice if more than one black eye appeared within six weeks. There was something to be said for the structure though, he always had something to do during the day. He had briefly flirted with the idea of college but he just couldn’t stay in one place long enough for it to work. Online classes were a substitute but they still left him with an alarming number of empty hours on his hands.

He sometimes considered changing up his schedule to compensate for the lost hours of sleep that came with every corpse. He could pencil in a few more hours of sleep the morning after, it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle except it felt like defeat. It felt like he was allowing these attempted-killings to mess up his life. He couldn’t let that happen, he couldn’t allow his father, or whoever was behind it all to dictate how he lived; he was his own person  _godammit_  and his life was his to live.

However, he had been getting a little bit more sleep lately.

Andrew didn’t help every time but fighting alone had become a rarity. In the two months since the drugging, there had been seven assassins sent; Andrew had been there for five of them and then arrived after the fact for one other. Neil would be lying if he said he wasn’t pleased by the development – he still wasn’t completely sure about Andrew and he could tell the sentiment was mutual but he was starting to get used to his presence and could genuinely say he would miss the help when he eventually had to leave.

To be honest, he didn’t know what to expect now with Andrew. It briefly occurred to him that he could just ask, there would be no negative consequences if he was told no and he would know where he stood. However, he immediately dismissed the idea. Andrew was too much of a wildcard – Neil had somehow washed the taste of the drugs out of his memory but he couldn’t forget how Andrew had expertly manoeuvred him into revealing his secrets. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust him to keep his word – he didn’t think Andrew would hurt him – but his secrets were his own and he didn’t need Andrew to come any further into his life.

So there he was, on the landing outside his apartment on a cold Tuesday morning, waiting for somebody to try and kill him. His mind was very much not focused on Kevin Day even if his Internet history was. He was achingly curious about the whole situation and more than slightly worried about what would happen if the Moriyamas started poking around a mere ten minutes from his current location. Did they know about Andrew? Would they know he didn’t live with Kevin for whatever reason, would they know he was here instead? Would they come looking for him? What would happen if they came in the middle of a Tuesday morning, what would happen if they saw somebody on the floor above dragging a corpse off the landing, what if, what if,  _what if?_  These were the thoughts that kept Neil up at night, that made him want to run, that made him want to claw the paranoia out of his brain. Then he caught himself. Paranoia was what had kept him alive all these years, paranoia kept him fast, kept him vigilant. It would keep him here too.

Unless, of course, if he started worrying about unlikely events and allowed somebody to creep up on him unannounced.

If he had been listening he would have heard a slight scramble as fingers gripped the edge of the stairwell, a light padding as someone made their way up, a soft intake of breath as they prepared to make their move.

But he didn’t hear any of that, too caught up in  _maybe_  and  _what if_  and there was a sharp pain in the back of his neck and he was falling forward.

_Stupid stupid stupid._

“How on earth are you still alive?” there came a whisper.

Neil was in the process of asking himself the same question when he caught a glimpse of white-blonde hair behind him.

“Cover your head the next time you try to sneak up on somebody.”

As biting as Neil managed to make himself sound, he was shaken. He hadn’t heard Andrew coming, he would have been dead if that was the assassin.

“That hurt,” he rubbed the back of his neck, trying not to let Andrew see how jilted he was.

“It would have hurt more had I used a knife.”

He supposed that was true.

“Are you expecting me to thank you? Now shut up, they could be here any second.”

“Not quite. I bumped into them outside.”

If they bumped into Andrew then they also bumped into his knife.

“Nice of you to come and tell me.”

“Hardly. I was going to let you sit here all night but I didn’t want to be woken up again by you traipsing back into your apartment at ass o’clock in the morning.”

“Invest in some earplugs.”

“If I had earplugs I’d be dead.”

Neil raised his eyebrow in apathy.

“So would you judging by the sorry show I just witnessed,” Andrew reminded him. “I hope your neck bruises.”

“Why are you still here if you’ve served your purpose in reminding me how incredibly necessary your presence is and how much I genuinely adore speaking with you?”

“I believe I’ve already told you how I feel about your sarcasm.”

“And I believe I already gave you a snarky answer so it looks like we’re at a stalemate.”

“I regret not using my knife.”

“Just one knife? Amateur.”

“I only need one.”

“That doesn’t leave you with a safety net if someone were to knock it out of your hand.”

“I don’t need a safety net.”

“Ah, a death wish, I should have copped that by now.”

“Please, I’m not Kevin.”

Andrew’s last comment brought Neil back to the present. Brought him back to the Moriyamas and the reason he had missed Andrew’s approach in the first place. He studied Andrew for a moment, took in the blank eyes staring back at him, thought back on the past few months of unasked-for support and of his choice that one morning in the car.

“I didn’t run,” he said softly, bringing the silence to the end.

“So it would seem.”

“You said I was either to run or to trust you.”

“Are you considering a job as a parrot? You’re not nearly colourful enough, though if you washed the dye out of your hair you might be.”

Neil flinched, though he was hardly shocked. Andrew wasn’t tall enough to see the top of his head if they were both standing up and his roots weren’t noticeable from a distance but he wasn’t surprised that he had been found out.

“How?”

“I could smell the dye the other night. That’s sloppy.”

That was a valid criticism, he should have been more careful. Neil filed the point away – it wouldn’t happen again.

“You said I could trust you,” he dragged the conversation – if that’s what it could be called – back to his original point. “Did you mean it?”

Andrew didn’t answer, merely frowned before nodding.

He could be lying. He could be laughing silently at Neil’s naivety but he had bristled at the previous suggestions of dishonesty and from everything Neil had seen of him over the past two months he was inclined to believe him. He was violent, surly and often insulting but as far as Neil could tell he had never lied.

He had chosen the wording of his question very carefully, not wanting to give Andrew a reason to back away. The last time Neil had accused him of untruths his collar had been torn with the force of Andrew’s anger.  _Did you mean it_  was different to  _were you lying_  and they both knew it.

“Do the Moriyamas know where Kevin is?”

Andrew’s lip curled. “Why do you care? I thought you were busy staying out of our hair?”

“I need to know if I’m safe here.”

“You need to know if you need to run. No, they don’t, not yet. It doesn’t matter to you either way.”

“Yes, it does. You’re here.”

“What does that have to do with it?” Andrew’s voice took on a new tone, something Neil couldn’t quite place.

“They might come and get you.”

“If the Moriyamas are ever in a position where they can find me, I won’t be here.”

It took Neil a moment to decipher Andrew’s words but a wave of tension left his shoulders when he did. He was safe, as safe as he ever was in any case.

“You are disgustingly predictable do you know that?” Andrew wasn’t finished.

“On the contrary, the fact that I’m still alive after so long means I’m not. Do not pass go do not collect two hundred dollars.”

“The fact that you were ever in one place long enough to finish a game of Monopoly begs to differ. Let’s not forget that I killed you tonight.”

“Yet here I am. You’re not as deadly as you think.”

“That’s a dangerous mentality to have. I could kill you right this instant if I wanted to.”

Neil scoffed, at once sure of himself and worried that was true. “You could try.”

Andrew’s hand snapped toward Neil’s chest without warning, Neil just managing to deflect it. The other hand went for his side but now Neil was ready and slapped the wrist hard enough that, had there been a knife, it would be on the floor. He retaliated with a hand of his own hitting Andrew’s collarbone. Andrew didn’t manage to block it but it wouldn’t have been fatal anyway – the angle wasn’t quite right and Neil’s imaginary knife would merely have scraped along the pale flesh leaving a wet trail of red in its wake.

They continued to mock-spar for a minute or so, each managing to land glancing hits but always being denied the killing blow. Neil’s ankle would have been shattered, Andrew would barely be able to hold a knife and both of them would need a significant amount of first aid but neither was able to fully incapacitate the other. Neil was grinning in a way that he knew would be terrifying to any normal person but this was exhilarating. They were both panting, trying to keep the volume down, acting out their fake injuries and sizing the other up. Neil hadn’t enjoyed himself this much in  _years_.

A creak from above brought them both back to reality as their heads snapped towards the sound in unison.

“You should finish cleaning up,” Neil whispered as quietly as he could.

Andrew nodded once in agreement before looking Neil up and down as he caught his breath.

“No use being able to fight if you don’t hear me coming,” he said as a final remark before starting down the stairs without another glance.

“But I  _trust_  you, remember?” Neil called after him softly.

He heard Andrew’s huff and knew the sarcasm had been noted. If there was a bit of truth in there, well he would keep that to himself.

*****

Neil stared at his laptop screen in horror.

The message had come through as normal and it had only taken him a few minutes to decipher the words on the screen. He deciphered them a second time, then once more. After three tries he was finally forced to accept that there was no mistake.

There was an assassin due every day for the next week.

This was going to be hell.

It was probably doable, that was one thing he had learned from the past few years. Though the assassins really were trying to kill him, whoever was sending them was not. It was always just within his ability to stop them and that was hopefully still the case now. By the end of the week he would be running on fumes from the missed sleep and would more than likely be incredibly sore, but he’d manage.

That was his problem with his current life. He was glad to be out of his father’s control and out of reach of his fists, glad that he could do as he pleased for the most part and above all, glad that he was alive. However, his waking hours were spent looking over his shoulder, ready at all times to drop everything and run. He couldn’t even sleep through the night, always slightly afraid that the next killer would arrive without warning, afraid they’d get him in his bed. Despite years of hardship - learning to fight, to kill - he was still only living day to day. No, it wasn’t living; he was surviving, there was a difference. He continued to exist from one day to the next but without doing anything more. There were no lasting relationships in his life and nothing he could do - he could make no impact, not when he was forced to literally grapple with his past at four in the morning. The worst part was the lack of choice – it was either continue or die.

He was so  _tired_ , by god was he tired and he was almost numb trying not to care but he kept going because there was no other choice.

So when the first assassin was due, Neil dutifully took up position on the landing and concentrated very hard on not letting anybody sneak up on him – trustworthy or otherwise.

The fight was nothing special. It lasted roughly five minutes from when Neil first heard footsteps on the stairs to when the bloody corpse hit the ground right in the middle of his new rug. He sighed. Usually he wouldn't bother with decorating - there was no point when each apartment only lasted a few months - but the rug had caught his eye and he  _liked_ it, it looked good beside the piece-of-shit sofa. Now there was half a circulatory system soaked into the fibres and it was just one more thing to dispose of. Somebody less experienced might have been tempted to roll the body up in the rug but Neil wasn’t stupid nor was he a cliché. At least he didn’t think so, though he knew somebody would tell him otherwise.

He shook his head to bring his thoughts back to the moment at hand.

It was just as well because otherwise he might have flinched at the sight of a man in his doorway and he simply  _couldn’t_ allow Andrew to think he had successfully surprised him twice in a row, he would never live it down.

“Really? The carotid? That’s just sloppy.”

Neil bristled. It wasn’t that Andrew was wrong per say – it was sloppy, the carotid artery meant there was far too much blood on his floor – but it had been taking too long and he had a whole week of this ahead of him so it was worth the extra ten minutes of sleep. Perhaps not worth the loss of his new rug, but not unforgivable.

“It’s part of my plan. I’m hoping the blood will seep through the floor and drip from your ceiling.”

“I’ll set up a bucket to collect it and I’ll find a creative way to return it to you.”

It occurred to Neil that they probably shouldn’t be joking about a corpse that was still warm. He paused momentarily then shrugged – it’s not as if it would care after all.

“I’ll give you a score out of ten for creativity and unexpectedness.”

“I’ll earn an eleven.”

Neil merely grunted in response. He checked his shoes for blood so that he wouldn’t trek it through the apartment before heading into his bedroom and pulling his pre-disposal kit from storage underneath the bed. Ikea probably wouldn’t appreciate the use he found for their products but they were great value and easy to wipe down. They even had little wheels on them for easy movement, they really were missing a marketing angle.

He ignored Andrew as he went about his ritual with the tarp and his kit. At this point in his life, he had this down to a science though usually it was left it until morning. However, Andrew didn’t look like he was going to leave immediately so he figured he might as well multitask – he could respond to threats and dismember a body at the same time.

As it turned out, he didn’t have to multitask.

There were no threats. There were no criticisms. There were no remarks at all.

Andrew stood and watched Neil for the duration of the process, his arms crossed over his chest as he leant against the back of the sofa with the usual bored expression on his face.

It wasn’t exactly nice but of all the times Neil had to dispose of a body it was the nicest.

*****

Assassin number two was slightly different.

Slightly different meant Neil had a cut along his calf. Slightly different meant when he retreated into his apartment the limp was real even if the whimper was not. Slightly different meant Neil reached for his second knife and the corners of his mouth rose in a smile as he struck an unusually painful killing blow.

Neil always felt a little bit quieter after a fight like that.

He didn’t like where he went and he didn’t like himself when he was there. In the heat of the moment it was fine, it was almost amusing but afterwards, when he came down from the sick high there was always that moment when he remembered his thoughts and mentally folded in on himself a little bit. It wasn’t major, he could still think, could still run if he needed to but he always felt a little bit less present after one of those nights, like the world was a little bit too much, like it was running at 101% speed and he was just out of sync.

His hands didn’t shake as he cleaned the floor, there were no tears, there was no emotion, he just felt hollow. He wanted to collapse into bed, pull the duvet over his head and switch his thoughts off for a few short hours, wanted to surrender to the tantalising pull of unconsciousness. But that’s not how he stayed alive so he cleaned and he bandaged and he didn’t listen out for the door at his back and it didn’t open and he took down his blackout blinds and the sun came up and the world kept going and so did he.

*****

He was tired down to his bones, the assassin was later than usual and he still had four more nights after this one.

He had already decided that his schedule was shot and he was going to spend the day sleeping. He had tried to do so the previous day but found himself unable, too caught up in his own mind to be able to shut it off even though there was nothing he wanted nothing more. However, at this stage, it was past the point where he had a choice in the matter and he was just about able to resist falling asleep right there and then. It was warm, it was dark and he’d slept on harder floors than the carpeted landing but he had to  _keep going, stay alive, don’t be stupid_.

There was a squeak as somebody’s shoe scraped a step on the staircase but before Neil could do more than tense, a door opened below.

He sighed in relief then picked himself up and went to help.

Andrew had succeeded in getting the assassin’s attention – as an angry man with knives tended to do – and they stopped their progress up the stairs to combat the threat. However, Andrew wasn’t their target and as soon as they glimpsed Neil they vaulted toward him without hesitation, leaving Andrew at the bottom of the stairs, momentarily shocked into stillness.

Neil wasn’t ready but he was used to this, he had trained for this, his fists were already coming up. It took two well-placed punches to put them off balance and they tripped. Their knee would have made contact with the concrete staircase, and to be honest that would have made Neil’s job a lot easier, but that carried the potential for noise so he caught it in his palm and wrenched. Their eyes widened and Neil saw the exact moment the pain hit and they filled with unbidden tears.

 _Impaired vision_  he noted, quickly bringing his hand back up to chop their nose with its side, forcing them to close their eyes as they welled up even further. From there it was easy, his hands found his knives and it was all over.

Neil guided the body into a position more conducive to dragging and slowly shook his brain back into shape. He was off his game, it was a problem.

Where had Andrew gotten to?

Their eyes met as Neil looked up. Andrew’s gaze spoke of cold appraisal and Neil wasn’t sure what could be seen in his own.

“You’re struggling,” Andrew told him, answering his question. It was clear some of his desperation had crept into his eyes.

“I am, but I’m still alive.”

“Not for long if you keep fighting in this state.”

“I’ll sleep all day so I’ll be fine for tomorrow,” he grunted as he started hefting the corpse up the stairs.

Andrew didn’t move for another second and when he did it was the opposite to what Neil expected. He made his way over and slapped Neil’s hands away from the corpse, lifting it himself with ease and turning back toward his own apartment.

“Go the fuck to sleep Josten.”

Neil stared for a moment but ultimately decided to do as he was told.

*****

Day four was easier.

Neil was rested, his mind was back to normal and the cut on his calf had started to heal. He cut down the assassin without any hassle even if his arms felt heavier than usual and his turns weren’t quite as sharp. He got through it and it was over. The plan worked perfectly so there was no need to clean any blood off the landing or to drag a dead weight up the stairs.

He chuckled –  _dead weight._ That would be the title of his autobiography, he decided.

“Knock knock,” there came a voice behind him and Neil nearly smiled. He didn’t bother replying.

Andrew assumed the same position as the other night and settled back to watch Neil clean up. When it looked like the process was almost finished, he went to the windows without prompting and silently removed the blackout blinds before closing the curtains.

“Is this new arrangement permanent?” he asked out of the blue.

“No,” Neil replied without looking up.

“How many more are there?”

“Three.”

Andrew nodded.

“I’ll take care of it tomorrow night,” he said.

“There’s no point, if I’m up I might as well clean up after, it doesn’t make too much of a difference.”

“You misunderstand what I’m saying. You sleep tomorrow night – I’ll take care of everything.”

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Several responses died in Neil’s mouth.  _You don’t have to do that_.  _I can take care of myself. You don’t have to protect me._ They were all irrelevant – Andrew knew full well he was under no obligation to help, that Neil would survive by himself. 

“Why?” He settled on one word.

“You’re careless, there’s less risk if I do it.”

That wasn’t a full answer but it was enough for Neil to realise that it didn’t really matter what Andrew said.

“Okay.” He didn’t say thank you.

“The next night is yours. If there’s blood on my carpet tomorrow you can pay for it.”

“Okay,” he repeated.

“Now let me get the fuck to sleep.”

Neil didn’t say that he hadn’t forced Andrew out of bed. He didn’t say that he wasn’t keeping Andrew in the apartment. He didn’t say anything, just watched him go, the weight on his shoulders slightly lighter than they had been a moment ago.

*****

 _Andrew’s night,_  as Neil had taken to calling it, went off without a hitch. Neil had anticipated waking up at four just to make sure he wasn’t taken by surprise but that was not the case.

He slept through the night.

*****

Andrew didn’t make an appearance the night after and as Neil didn’t find himself with a carpet bill, he presumed there hadn’t been any complications. There was a shake-up in his usual routine when the assassin decided to come in through a window as opposed to the stairs but he dealt with it quickly and was asleep long before the first hints of light began to creep across the sky.

*****

The last assassin was uneventful, so much so that Neil was almost surprised. They had fought for about ten minutes and though a few hits landed on Neil, some involving knives, he emerged feeling upbeat about the week behind him. He had expected something bigger for the last night, something that would test him and push him past his limits, something that would really make him fight for the right to survive. Instead, it was over without any complications and he was back in his bed within record time. Andrew hadn’t shown up but there was no reason for him to make the trek up the stairs – his help was welcome but Neil could take care of himself.

It was with these thoughts in his head that he fell asleep.

It was with panic and fear that he woke up a half hour later.

Still foggy with sleep, he jumped out of bed, trying desperately to find his bearings in a room full of movement. No light came through his curtains and he could only make out the faintest of shapes. The thumping of his heart threatened to overwhelm him but this was not his first rodeo so he threw himself towards the door, bleary-eyed and barefooted – at a certain point it was more prudent to run than to fight and Neil knew how to pick his battles.

It was only halfway to his front door that he could comprehend even the bare bones of the situation. He kept running. He was at the top of the stairs before realisation set in – he was alive. He had been fast asleep, he should be dead in his own bed, his throat slit without a sound and the assassin well on their way home. Yet here he was still breathing.

Andrew.

He was running again but the other way now, retracing his frantic steps back to the fight, back to the tussle where Andrew was just barely holding his own by the looks of it. He and the assassin were both on their knees grappling on the floor at the end of the bed, Andrew’s back pressed into the edge of the mattress as he just batted away the knife strikes. He looked composed but Neil could see the cracks, if only from repeated exposure to what he usually looked like in a fight he could easily win. It was similar to their mock-spar the previous week -  _was it only a week?_ – with his brow furrowed in concentration and the controlled edge in his eyes starting to slip. Except that this time the consequences of failure were deadly and he was bordering on desperate. He wasn’t quite there yet, it hadn’t enveloped him, he was only ghosting around the idea of desperation, flirting with its edges. If it continued he might take the plunge and let his instincts back in but for now he was maintaining a fragile hold on his control.

Neil didn’t think about it, didn’t mentally process the image in front of him, but somewhere along the way his eyes had adjusted and he could see enough to understand. Much like at the stairwell, there was no conscious decision made, he just lunged and the fight was over before the assassin could comprehend enough to fight on two fronts. It wasn't physically finished, they still grappled quietly for a few minutes until she was subdued, but it was over in the way a game of chess is over when there is a clear victor a few moves from the end, even if the losing party isn’t aware. There were some sacrifices along the way; Andrew’s arm was cut deeply through the sleeve – his bishop perhaps, no,  _their_  bishop – and Neil’s forehead saw another gash added as he slashed at her Achilles and then her wrist – their rook sacrificed to take her knight and her queen. Then suddenly Andrew's knife found her neck, her king, and it really was over, her head slumped over Andrew’s knees in death.

Sometimes Neil felt as if he was looking at a scene from above or from the sides; like he wasn’t really living it but just observing. This was the opposite. He stared at Andrew from his position behind the body; both of them panting without saying a word. He didn’t fight the urge to wipe the blood out of his eyes – though his eyebrows fought valiantly they could not hold off the steady drip from his forehead forever. Andrew’s gaze only lasted a moment before he was pulling up his sleeve and ripping off an armband that Neil had never noticed, using it to try and stem the flow of blood from his forearm. There were other, older scars around the wound and though they were smaller and duller they spoke of more pain. Now was not the time, however, so Neil tore his eyes away and retreated to the bathroom in search of the much-used first aid kit.

He gathered up the necessary pieces in lieu of the whole pack, his body on autopilot as his mind caught up with the events of the night. To say he was rattled was an understatement. He had double and triple checked the info for the week, there wasn’t a single mention of a second assassin on the last day. This was unprecedented, this was dangerous, this was absolutely terrifying. What was he supposed to do now that he couldn’t be sure when somebody would try to kill him? He could run, sure, but that had never stopped them from finding him before and he wasn’t optimistic enough to think that would be the case now. His only option was to stay but this past week of constant vigilance had been taxing enough, he couldn’t keep it up permanently. If he didn’t know when they were coming, how could he ever let his guard down? How could he ever sleep at night knowing that he might not wake up? Andrew had caught him tonight, had saved him this time but he couldn’t expect to be able to rely on that help, couldn’t even hope to ask.

Some background part of his brain registered that he was still panting even though the adrenaline was gone, he recognised that he was panicking, he realised he was seconds away from the edge of a cliff.

The sound of Andrew ripping off the other armband brought him to his senses and he wordlessly covered the rest of the distance from where he was frozen in the doorway.

If his hands shook as he ripped open the gauze, Andrew didn’t mention it. If his breathing was still too loud as he unwrapped bandages, that too passed without remark. In return, Neil didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow when Andrew recoiled from his hands as they tried to help, tried to keep the blood where it belonged. If some of the blood still ended up on Neil’s hands, well that was fitting in a way, wasn’t it? A minute could have passed, or an hour before the final piece of tape was secured and Andrew could move without dripping his life onto Neil’s hastily placed pillow.

 _Coffee_  – the thought came unbidden but once it arrived Neil could think of nothing else.

He made two mugs because that seemed like the thing to do. Andrew grimaced as he took a sip, moving past Neil to fumble through the cupboards for a bedraggled bag of sugar. It went back into the press much lighter.

One cup passed. Then another.  A third was contemplated but passed over and only then did they speak.

“Thank you,” Neil whispered. He didn’t look at Andrew’s face, couldn’t quite bring himself to.

“You were fighting earlier,” Andrew explained without prompting. “So when I heard a second one I knew it was different.”

 _Different._ Such a small word to describe the rug that was swept from under Neil’s feet, the blinding light in his eyes as he frantically tried to see a way forward.

“You were stupid to take an apartment on the first floor,” Andrew continued, “I can hear every fucking step you take.”

“I wanted your apartment but you took it just before I could.” Neil was suddenly overwhelmingly glad and took back his previous grievances on the subject. “That’s probably why the first guy tried to kill you instead of me.”

Andrew nodded, accepting this.

“You ran,” he said.

“I stopped.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

He did know but saying it felt delicate, like if he voiced his hopes they might evaporate.

“Why?” Andrew pressed.

“Kevin,” Neil blurted out, realising what it was he wanted to say.

“Kevin,” Andrew repeated back. “You stayed because of Kevin.”

His tone was derisive and Neil didn’t blame him if his thoughts went to the obvious. If he was staying to be closer to Kevin he too would hate himself.

“Not because of Kevin, because I want what Kevin has.”

“And what does Kevin have.”

“Hope.”

“Most of what you say sounds like a shitty soap opera but this is another level. Besides, Kevin doesn’t have any hope, he’s a pool of defeat that only you could ever hope to rival.”

Neil shook his head. “He isn’t hopeful but there’s hope for him yet. He has people fighting for him, he could fight if he wanted to, he has the luxury of support. I have none of that.”

Andrew’s head tilted and he considered Neil for a long moment.

“If you think coming back for me means I have to help you then you’re wrong. I don’t owe you shit.”

“I know that. I didn’t come back to put you in my debt, I...” He took a moment to choose his words, to try and convey what he was just about able to understand himself. He wasn’t lying; there had been no moment of weighing up the pros and cons of helping Andrew, he had just done it.

“You told me to trust you and I did,” he said eventually. “I do. That was the decision I made. I only ran tonight until I realised why I was still alive in the first place.”

Over the past few months, Andrew had given him a brief taste of what it was like to have somebody to rely on, what it was like not have to fight alone. He wasn’t sure what to call it but he didn’t want to give it up and he didn’t want to run away from it if he didn’t have to.

“I said to trust me, that doesn’t mean I’m protecting you. It means I’m not trying to kill you.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

“I can hear you every time. I can hear every thump, every hit.”

“You could just roll over and go back to sleep.”

“What, and wake up to a crime scene in the building because you didn’t sleep for two days and got yourself killed? I don’t think so.”

“I’ve already shown you I’m not easy to kill.”

“You’ve also shown me that you’re prone to distractions and stupid decisions. I can’t even count the number of times I could have killed you since that first night.”

“It doesn’t count if I know you won’t kill me. You can’t boast about sneaking up on me when I know you’re not a threat.”

“I’m always a threat.”

“Not to me. Not anymore. Or were you lying?”

“Don’t play that shit, don’t think you can press my buttons,” Andrew snarled.

“Why shouldn’t I think that? Right now you’re sounding an awful lot like somebody whose buttons have been pressed.”

“Keep it up and I’ll stop helping you.”

“Ah, so you admit you were helping.”

“Of course I was helping you - helping you to be less annoying.”

“Is it working?” Neil smirked. He was enjoying himself now.

“No. You remain insufferable.”

“Yet you keep trying, your patience is remarkable.”

“Keep talking and you’ll see exactly how close my patience is to running out.”

Neil took the hint and let the conversation lag.

“I’ll keep helping you,” Andrew said suddenly after a few minutes.

“Why?”

“This is mildly interesting and a useful distraction.”

“I thought I was the one prone to distraction?”

“You’re contagious, like the worst sort of disease.”

“What do you want in return?” Neil knew how this worked.

“Nothing else.”

Neil had only given Andrew a promise not to run and an initially grudging trust that had, somehow, been compounded through his own blood, the blood staining his floor, and the blood drying into Andrew’s armbands. It seemed that was enough.

“Okay.”

“I’m leaving,” Andrew stood up. “You can follow me and clean up any blood on the stairs.”

It wasn’t a suggestion.

So Neil followed him down the stairs only to have cleaning spray thrust into his arms and door shut in his face. It didn’t take long – a footprint on the top step, a red streak where Andrew’s shoulder had hit off the wall, some small splashes as Neil pushed his hair out of his face, not realising his forehead had scabbed around a few strands. It was methodical and it was calming and in a way it was Andrew’s own small form of trust. Not in Neil himself per say, but in his abilities and more importantly in his promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't lie, I'm having a good bit of fun thinking up the chapter titles for this, puns are my life-blood.
> 
> I'm on tumblr at [palmettostatevixens](http://www.palmettostatevixens.tumblr.com) if you want to pop on over!


	4. This Killing Game, It's a Team Sport

Another month passed and Andrew was true to his word. A new routine had emerged; Neil now informed him of the nights ahead of time so they could both plan their sleep around the fights. It reduced his level of exhaustion and worry to a manageable level, knowing that he wasn’t alone in his struggle .

At present, he was on his way down to Andrew’s apartment to inform him of the latest message from the mole. He had taken to visiting Andrew in person; never going into his apartment, just hovering in the doorway while filling him in. Once, another inhabitant of the building had seen them and given them an odd look but apart from that the system was working well.

Neil’s only worry was another unexpected assassin showing up, but even that was somewhat assuaged by their deal. He had upped the security in his own apartment – adding more locks to the doors and windows, moving furniture around so there was no clear path to the bedroom and putting up the blackout blinds every night, regardless of the scheduled attacks. He wasn’t naive enough to think this would stop them, that wasn’t the plan -he just had to make it impossible to silently reach him in his bed. With his new precautions in place, he was reasonably confident that even if he managed to sleep through their approach, Andrew would not. Andrew, who had proven multiple times that he would be woken by even the slightest of noises, was his safety net, his fudge ratio. It wasn’t enough to make him feel completely safe but it was enough to keep him going from day to day.

“What?” Andrew barked in lieu of a greeting when he opened the door.

“Just letting you know there’s none due this week.” Neil wasn’t fazed. Sharp and to the point, that was how they communicated and he was comfortable enough in their dynamic that he didn’t read any threat in the bluntness. That was just the way things were.

“Okay. I won’t be here tonight so if you want to be smart you better get some sleep now. I’m leaving at six and I won’t be back until tomorrow.”

“Plans?”

“Yes.” Andrew didn’t elaborate nor did Neil expect him to.

“Thanks for the heads up.”

“This way if you die it’s down to your own stupidity.”

“Your deep concern is making me uncomfortable.”

Nothing more of substance was said and the encounter ended not long after. Neil decided to take Andrew’s advice and get some sleep in – he wasn’t expecting an attack but there was no way in hell he was going to spend tonight unconscious without anybody to watch his back.       

*****

It was half past five and his brain was still foggy with sleep after napping for a few hours, when there came a knock on the door. He flinched and then winced as the mug of coffee warming his hands fell to the floor and shattered. Instantly suspicious, he made his way to the door, neatly sidestepping the hot liquid to peer tentatively through the peephole.

There was nobody to be seen.

Assassins weren’t known to knock, that was well established. Yet he felt the ever-present knot in his stomach twist a little tighter, pull at his thoughts, stop his hand as he reached for the locks. Maybe they had figured out that Andrew was helping him and decided to attack during the day when footsteps on the floor above wouldn’t be noticeable. It could be a trap, there could be an explosive rigged to the door or something equally unsubtle. Or it could be nothing, just some asshole who decided to knock as they walked by.

It paid to be cautious, to be paranoid but only to a certain extent – past that point it actively hindered the process of living. So, knives at the ready just in case, he pulled back the locks and opened the door.

A frown slipped across his face as he looked up and down the seemingly empty hallway, his pulse thumping in his ears. He couldn’t even hear anyone moving away, though admittedly it had taken him a minute or so to open the door. It was only at the last second before closing the door that he happened to glance down and a flash of white caught his eye.

It was a note - nothing fancy, just a page torn out of a notebook and folded in half. It wasn’t long, nor was it eloquent, just three words scribbled haphazardly across the paper with a ballpoint; _Wake up asshole_. His lips stretched into a smile against his will, but it wasn’t his dead smile so that was okay.

If, while hanging up his blackout blinds, Neil kept an eye out for a monstrous looking car in the parking lot, well that was just a coincidence. If, when emptying his pockets out as he changed into more practical clothing, the note ended up on the dresser instead of in the bin, well that was merely an accident. If he forgot, in the end, to clean up the broken coffee cup, well actually that was a genuine mistake.

The apartment was ready, the lights were off, and Neil was sitting on the sofa, an assortment of knives on his person and several more hidden around the room. Now came the waiting and the vigilance, likely futile. Now came the darkness, but no, that was already surrounding him, ushering in the next twelve hours of silence.

Except it was only three hours because then there were four successive bangs on the door before it opened inwards, the many locks acting bizarrely like hinges as the real hinges gave way. Neil nearly laughed at the absurdity of it all, just catching himself as he sprung behind the sofa at the noise. He held his breath as they stalked into the room - judging by the footsteps there were two of them which couldn’t possibly bode well. The bedroom door opened and then shut again and there was silence as the world seemed to pause in anticipation.

Neil chose his moment and vaulted over the back of the sofa, revealing himself through the noise. The front door was still open so the darkness wasn’t complete, but that gave Neil’s light-starved eyes the advantage. He lunged at the assassin in his field of vision and threw a knife at where he judged the other to be. There was a curse as it hit the target and Neil allowed himself a flash of victory before dismay took over as he heard it clatter to the ground – merely a graze.

Now was not the time to dwell, his mind was filled with survival and nothing else as the second man, no _woman_ , joined the fight. Immediately Neil could tell these were different. They worked together, never letting more than a hiss pass their lips but always managing to complement their strikes with impeccable timing. He would almost have admired them if they weren’t doing their best to kill him and even then he felt a little bit of approval slip through. They were a step up from what he was used to and on a bad day they might have succeeded in their job.

But he would not, he could not let this be a bad day.

So he parried and he struck with every ounce of his finely-honed skill but still it was not enough. He was forced backwards step by step, bleeding from his shoulder, his thigh, his ear. It was too much, the back of his legs hit the sofa - there was nowhere else to go.

Well no, that wasn’t quite the case. True, he was physically trapped against the cushioned back, but he had yet to play his ace, could still take one more step, though not in the physical sense. He took a deep breath and let himself go, let his inhibitions flood away. The corner of his lip curled into a smile as he caught an arm and wrenched. It was a full grin by the time he ducked down to avoid making eye-contact with the point of a blade, by the time his hand curled and his knife sank into the back of a knee.

He was gone but he was winning and that was the point.

No, the point was buried in the stomach, then the intestines, then the neck as he manoeuvred around the edge of the sofa, dragging an almost-corpse along with him as a shield. He was backed into a corner but was he really trapped if he had the upper hand? The woman tried to reach him but his shield was taller and her knives merely complimented his own as they drained the body of its life blood, not that there was any life left.

Eventually, she took advantage of an opening and her hand shot past the corpse. But it was only an opening in the way that a dark cave floored with bones and scored with a growl is an opening. She, the murderous assassin, the naive adventure – there was no difference in the end, it seemed – entered the cave knives flashing, but Neil was waiting, he was ready, he was _ravenous._ His hand jerked suddenly and the corpse between them was gone - he ducked in close, blades flashing and it was all over, a second body slumping to the floor.

He kicked her as he went to turn on the lights, his smile fading as his thoughts drifted back to sanity. A wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm him as he contemplated the fight. The stomach, _he had gone for the stomach_ , that was just cruel.

So caught up was he in his thoughts, that he missed a third figure slipping through the door and melting into the shadows at the wall. It was partly due to his state of mind, partly due to the corpses in the corner of his eye and partly because there was just no sound to hear. His attention remained elsewhere as they crept closer, not even a whisper of fabric giving their presence away. All it took was a second before their hands were around Neil’s neck, his feet were kicked out from under him and there was nothing he could do.

Oh, he struggled even though every movement brought with it an avalanche of pain, kicking and punching and scraping. He reached for his last knife but it was gone, it was still embedded in the side of a body that was only a metre away but might as well have been half the world. Still, the hands remained constant, tightening whenever they could, and a different sort of darkness started pressing in at the edge of Neil’s vision. Desperation leaked into his struggling as he clawed at the hands, attempting to gasp as his own nails scraped and scratched against the taunt skin. He knew it had only been seconds but it felt like hours as the pressure increased. It felt like forever, it felt like it could easily be the rest of his life.

The attacker adjusted their footing as they tightened their grip, then there was a crash and a crunch and the hands were gone before Neil could process anything.

He lunged blindly to the side, the edge of his foot catching on something sharp – _the coffee mug._ Now was not the time but he sent out a silent thanks to his lazy past-self as he felt around the counter for the bread knives. Oxygen-starved, his brain refused to cooperate fully but he was hardwired to survive, to keep going if there was any strength left in his body.

Though unwieldy, a breadknife was better than nothing and two breadknives were better than one.

It was only seconds before the assassin was back on their feet lunging toward him but this time Neil was ready, filled with a drunken sort of strength as he struggled to put his feet where they had to go. One knife was thrown at their heart, the other following seconds after. They were both batted away but he had been expecting that, would have to be a fool not to. He had one knife left, pried from its hidden position behind the toaster and held in his sleeve. It hit its mark and a puff of air left the assassin’s mouth as it lodged in their right lung.

The sound was soft, achingly so, as they tried and failed to replace the breath it cost them.

Another knife was drawn from above the fridge – Neil wasn’t going to rest on his laurels and assume them incapacitated. A punctured lung wouldn’t kill them outright, or even at all, so he had to be fast. He aimed for the neck as he ran to his next weapon. It hit the collarbone – or rather the hollow judging by how it sank in past the material of their clothes. His brain was beginning to clear but he couldn’t remember where the rest of his knives were hidden, too rattled by the slow approach of the assassin.

The man coughed and stumbled but kept forcing Neil backwards so that he was brought to the ground by a forgotten corpse, still warm.

 _The corpse_.

He grabbed one, two knives out of the body, hurling them at the approaching threat silhouetted against the light from the door. A third was wrenched from the neck, thrown before he could even check to see had the others hit their marks. The fourth hit only air as the man slumped and fell - a dull thump that would have surely woken Andrew had he been sleeping below.

It was done. He was safe.

“You’re still alive tonight,” the man rasped from his fallen position.

He stopped to cough and Neil flinched at the rough voice, aware that his would probably sound the same if he spoke. He leant closer to make out the rest of the words, still wary of sudden attacks. Taking in the assortment of knives decorating the dying man’s body, it didn’t appear very likely but one could never be sure.

“You’re still alive,” the man repeated, “but how long will you last without Minyard?”

Neil’s blood ran cold. “What?” he stuttered, confused and terrified.

“Minyard. You killed the three of us but there’s seventeen after him. They have orders not to kill Day but he’s fair game. I bet he’s already dead.”

Neil’s head reeled with the sickening possibilities for a moment before he stole a knife from the man’s knee and slit his throat.

He withdrew the rest of them from their assorted positions around the body, wiping them on his tattered shirt before stuffing them back into their confines on his person. This time, he didn’t feel bad about the kick aimed at the corpse on his way out.

It only took a moment to reposition the door behind him so that, as long as nobody examined the hinges too closely, nothing would seem amiss.

Then he turned down the stairs and ran.

It took a second to mentally calculate his route as he raced through the building without regard for the security cameras. The assassins were professionals so they had more than likely already disabled any prying eyes, but he would still have to check the following day if he was still around to do so.

The thought nearly drew him up short but he kept running, if only for something else to focus on. This was a stupid idea. No, it was beyond stupid, it was suicidal, so why was he still barrelling towards the Tower like his life depended on it, when really the opposite was true? Why was he risking himself? Why didn’t he just run the other way, start a new life, pick a new name? These questions and more ran through his brain every step of the way, interspersed with the assassin’s words. _How long will you last without Minyard?_ – the conflicting thoughts fought for airtime in his mind as his feet beat the pavement rhythmically - _he’s fair game –_ and, well, that was his answer, wasn’t it?

_I bet he’s already dead._

Neil sped up unconsciously.

It was too long before he finally entered the parking lot under the tower and slammed his hand into the button for the lifts. A few seconds passed and nothing happened, but there hadn’t been any signs last time, had there? He bounced from foot to foot, scowling as his clothes brushed against the open cuts covering his body; some deeper than others but none give the chance to heal. After a full minute and a half he gave up on waiting - it was taking too long, and besides, he would hear the lift if it arrived as he retreated. The door to the stairway was tucked away behind a pillar – invisible if you weren’t looking – and covered in heavy locks.

Heavy, _broken_ locks.

Heart racing, he took the first few steps two at a time before the logical part of his brain kicked in. It was probably more prudent to save the remnants of his strength for what lay ahead. That is if there was anything more than broken bodies and dying breaths. No, that was not the way to think, he had to believe he could still help.

_There’s seventeen after him._

Even clinging to all the hope he could muster, Neil knew Andrew couldn’t beat seventeen people, not if they were of the same calibre as the three sent for him. They had been beyond professional, beyond deadly, and it was only down to luck that Neil was still alive. Andrew couldn’t hope to fight seventeen of them, even if Kevin was more skilled than he let on. What was Neil hoping for? He could hardly turn the tide in such a fight, especially not in his current state.

Yet on he ran, reaching their floor before he could talk himself out of the idea.

Shouting reached his ears as soon as he left the stairwell, the unmistakable thumps of scattered fighting. Had Neil been able to calmly assess the situation he might have noted an unexpected number of fights but in that moment all he could see was Matt struggling frantically up against a door. He ran forward without thinking, throwing a knife ahead of him to lodge in the back of the attacker’s neck.

“Whoa, thanks man,” Matt gasped. He was panting with his hands on his knees, and Neil’s gaze was drawn to a bloody cut down the side of his face.

“Where’s Andrew?” The moment called for the disposal of small talk.

Matt didn't bother answering, just pointed down the hall to the far door. Neil was gone without another word, kicking the door open without a hint of subtlety.

The first sight before him was Kevin Day grappling with someone in the middle of the room. The second was a small corpse with white-blonde hair. Neil’s stomach dropped, his blood boiled and he began pulling the man off Kevin, shoving him to the ground, pulling a knife in and out, in and out, in and out. There was no way of knowing who had killed Andrew; it could have been the man under his blade, the woman fighting Matt, could have been any of the other fifteen people there tonight. Right now, none of that mattered and he let Kevin pull him up, let the corpse fall, let his knives be pried from his grip as silence fell throughout the building.

Then Kevin slapped him and suddenly he wasn’t accommodating, he was _furious_.

“How could you be stupid enough to let yourself be caught?” he yelled as Kevin looked on with shock. “How could you be so monumentally thick as to think you were safe here, to think you could beat them all? How did you let them get this close, why didn’t you run, how could you let them kill him?” He recognised that he was ranting, that his voice sounded like somebody had taken sandpaper to his larynx and that he was probably delirious but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t just accept what had happened. Maybe if he had arrived five minutes earlier then Andrew would still be alive, maybe if he hadn’t helped Matt, maybe, maybe, maybe...

Kevin’s expression went from angry to confused, before something like realisation crossed his face and he started laughing. Neil saw red, but before he could do anything, Kevin pointed behind him and somebody cleared their throat.

He whipped around and red still clouded his vision but now it was different. Now it was Andrew standing beside the white-haired corpse, covered in blood with an approximation of boredom on his face but with fire in his eyes.

Andrew looked between him and Kevin, before moving menacingly closer and pulling a knife from his armbands. Neil didn’t know what was going on but he didn’t question it, too distracted by the pure relief flooding his veins.

Andrew’s advance halted a few feet from Neil and Kevin and he pulled back his hand as he stared the two of them down for a moment, only to hurl a knife at Neil’s foot with such force that it quivered for a few moments after it lodged in the flesh.

Into the flesh, that is, of the not-corpse that had been crawling over to Neil. Neil neatly picked up his foot just as the knife left Andrew’s hand before using the last of his own knives to finish off the man at his feet.

“Interesting,” Andrew said. “If you trusted me you wouldn’t have moved your foot.”

Neil scoffed. “I trust you. However, I also know you and I’m not stupid.”

“As I said, interesting.”

A moment passed as they considered each other, Neil aware of a weight gone from his shoulders on seeing the other man alive. It was no secret, how much he had been relying on Andrew, but he hadn't quite realised how it would feel to have that support taken away. The loss had only lasted minutes but it felt eternal, it felt like the end - he was furious and numb all at once, but now that it was gone he could only feel exhilaration.

“No,” said Andrew forcefully.

Neil was confused for a second before he realised it was directed over his shoulder at Kevin. He had no idea what was going on – the preceding question must have been non-verbal – nor did he have a chance to find out because at that moment the room started to fill with people and his attention was drawn elsewhere.

“Was it him?” the blonde girl, Allison, screamed when she saw Neil. “Is he a part of this?” she asked the room before zeroing in him. “ _I’ll fucking kill you_!”

Unconsciously, Neil took a step to his left and Andrew mirrored him so that he was out of her direct line of fire. What was she talking about? Sure, she had every right to be angry if she thought he led the assassins to the Tower but it didn’t explain the _rage_ coming his way, especially as it wasn't shared by any of the others.

Wait.

Neil silently counted the faces around him, matching them to their introduction a few months ago. Everybody was accounted for except- _oh_.

Seth wasn’t there.

Neil could put two and two together – his absence plus Allison’s fury – to conclude that Seth was dead. That explained the muted faces crowding around the door; some adorned with suspicion though some noticeably lacking in the same. He was pretty sure Andrew’s presence as a buffer between him and the crowd was the only reason there was any doubt in their minds as to his involvement. If he had learned one thing on his last visit, it was that even though they might not _like_ Andrew, they trusted his word on matters like this. Unless that is, if they were too involved in the matter as Allison was.

“This wasn’t me.” Neil was surprised to hear his own voice. “I’m not with them, I’m not against you, I wouldn’t do that.”

“You’ve killed twenty-two people since I met you,” Andrew reminded him, ignoring Allison as Renee moved to restrain her.

“That’s a lie, twenty-two people were killed in my presence - I only killed thirteen of them, the rest are on you. Plus three earlier tonight and two just now who attacked Matt and Kevin.”

“Three earlier tonight?” Andrew asked, ignoring the rest.

“Yeah one of them told me what was going on here after they nearly strangled me to death. I bet my neck is going to bruise.”

“It already has. That explains your voice anyway.”

Still raspy then, he had been wondering if it was only to his ears.

“Those three were connected to what happened here tonight?” Nicky asked from his space in the doorway.

“Presumably, yeah,” he replied. “Speaking of which, how are you all still here if there were seventeen of them?”

They all exchanged glances before Dan spoke up.

“We may have left some parts out of our explanation from the last time. We’re here because we have bad pasts, yadda yadda, but also because we’re all well able to defend ourselves. There’s no dead weight, we all defend this place in exchange for a home. Seventeen attackers for the nine of us isn’t really a problem.”

“Fuck you,” Allison shrugged Renee’s arms aside and walked out, causing Dan to wince.

“Okay,” she amended, “it shouldn’t have been a problem. Seth was unlucky.”

“Seth was stupid,” Aaron said, though not loudly enough that Allison would hear. “He was too cocky, always has been, and tonight it finally caught up with him. He didn’t bother looking before leaving the kitchen and there was somebody waiting in the hallway – he walked straight into their trap. It was his own fault.”

“That’s harsh,” Nicky whispered, glancing nervously at the door as if Allison was waiting, listening on the other side. “Don’t say that.”

Aaron shrugged. “It’s no skin off my back, he was a dick. Besides, we’re all thinking it.”

“So you guys took down all of them?” Neil was just about getting his head around the situation. He was in a room full of angry people who could easily overpower him with their numbers. It was a struggle to keep his cool but he managed, largely due to Andrew still standing between him and the rest of the crowd.

“We got sixteen of them, with your help. One got away.” The look on Renee’s face said she wasn’t at all pleased about it. Her pastel hair was splattered with blood and the effect was more than mildly terrifying.

“He’ll tell Riko, next time there’ll be more,” Kevin said morosely.

Ah, so it was the Moriyamas behind this. He had reached that conclusion at the first mention of Kevin, though he would have happily been proved wrong. That meant the Moriyamas had attacked him directly, that they had intentionally targeted his apartment even when they knew Andrew was gone. This was beyond bad, this was terrifying.

“Neil,” somebody said sharply, forcibly removing him from his thoughts. “Neil you’re shaking.”

“I’m fine,” he rasped, wincing as his voice box let him down. “I should get going, things are finished here.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Dan waved her hand. “But that reminds me, why did you come here? Why not just run?”

It took a colossal amount of effort to stop his eyes flicking to Andrew. It would not do to let them know his reasoning - it could only give them ammunition for the future.

“I...” he began, not quite knowing what to say, what excuse to use. “I had to. They told me what was happening and I had to.”

Dan looked doubtful but didn’t press the issue, merely sent a questioning look Andrew’s way.

“No,” he growled in response.

Neil was too tired to try and work out everything left unsaid. If Andrew ever returned to their building, he would ask, but for now he didn’t care – all he wanted was to return to his apartment and sleep.

He was halfway to the door, roughly level with Andrew before he realised that was impossible.

“Oh,” he whispered, “shit.”

“What?” Andrew snapped.

There was no way to explain without betraying how the weakness of his current position.

It would be suicide to sleep in his apartment. If they came for him once, they could easily do so again and he couldn’t defend himself if he was unconscious, not with Andrew away at the Tower. All his locks, all his impediments were useless. But somehow he had to sleep - he could feel the adrenaline leeching from his body as he struggled to stay on his feet, his various pains becoming more and more noticeable the longer he was awake.

“Well whatever it is, can it wait until tomorrow?” Matt asked, seeing he wasn’t about to offer an explanation. “I’m wrecked and we all look like shit so I think the best thing to do is just go to sleep.”

“Yes dad,” Nicky put on a fake-sulk. “No wait, yes _daddy_ ,” he wiggled his eyebrows, giggling to himself as Aaron shouldered past him out the door in a huff.

How was he so unaffected by all of this? Even setting aside Seth’s death, how was everybody not panicking? They had been attacked in their inner sanctum, it was clear that they weren’t safe in their beds, how could they smile and joke and not feel like every moment was waiting to kill them? It was unfathomable.

“Neil you can sleep in Seth’s bed if you want,” Dan told him, shoving people out of the room ahead of her.

“What?” That was twice now that he had retreated into his own head. Someday it would happen around someone that meant him harm and then where would he be?

“I mean it’s not like he’s going to need it and it’s comfier than the couch.”

“You can’t go back to your apartment,” Andrew said from his side, correctly guessing the root of Neil’s hesitance.

“I have to,” he looked Andrew in the eye, trying to keep the hopelessness out of his voice. “The blinds are still up, the door is propped up in the frame, and there are three bodies in the living area. I have to go back and clean up before someone notices.”

Andrew looked at him for a long moment before turning to Nicky.

“Put him on the sofa in our room,” he said, in German.

Neil blinked. His mind flashed back through the past few months, trying to figure out had he let slip to Andrew at any point about his fluency in German. He settled on no, he hadn’t. That meant Andrew had no idea that Neil could understand every word, every question and evasion in front of him. That was useful, that was something he could use to his advantage, though if all their conversations centred on spare blankets and cursing, he wasn’t sure how much he would be able to glean. Finally, they finished and Andrew turned back to Neil, who instantly schooled his face into a picture of confusion.

“Give me your keys and go with Nicky,” Andrew said without preamble.

“What? Why?”

“You’re staying here. You’re in no fit state to clean up - you’re dead on your feet and you’ll only fuck it all up. I’ll do it.”

This time, Neil’s confusion wasn’t feigned.

“You’ll do it?”

“I thought we already discussed your tendency to parrot. Yes, I’ll clean up your mess, now give me the keys.”

“I can do it, I’ve been through worse.”

“I don’t care. This time, if you do a bad job it affects me. So shut the fuck up, follow Nicky, and let me hold up my end of the bargain.”

It took Neil a moment to understand that he was referring to his promise to help, and his body relaxed infinitesimally once he did. This was familiar, this was something he could count on, something he could trust.

“Okay,” he said eventually, crumbling slightly at the word.

Andrew’s raised eyebrow said he had been expecting much more of a fight, but Neil was _tired_ and besides, it had been months since he had been truly suspicious of Andrew’s intentions. If he wanted Neil dead, then he would already be six feet under - he was safe here if Andrew said so.

“Keys,” Andrew demanded, holding out his hand in wait.

Neil fished a single key from its position among his knives and placed it delicately in the palm of the outstretched hand.

“You don’t really need it, the locks are the hinges so just push,” he trailed off as he realised how delirious he sounded. Whatever, the situation would become clear once Andrew actually reached the door.

Andrew, to his credit, said nothing, perhaps realising that he wasn’t going to get any more coherence tonight. So he gave Neil a push toward Nicky, correcting his course slightly when he predictably stumbled, then shoved past the group in the doorway and left without another word.

Neil was led to a couch, thankfully, rather than the bed of a dead man. He didn’t really care as long as he could sleep, but taking Seth’s bed would undoubtedly lead to some unwanted friction between him and the others, so the couch was a welcome compromise.

*****

Neil awoke to strips of blue light shattering the darkness. Some part of his mind noted that it was a handy solution to the lack of windows, but the rest of his thoughts were focused on the eclectic collection of hurts scattered over his body. He had everything; they ranged from niggling pain to full blown agony, a horrendous spectrum of discomfort.

“You’re awake,” a voice floated through the no-longer-darkness.

“Wish I wasn’t,” he croaked in reply. It hurt.

“As do I,” another voice – Andrew – cut in. “Now get up.”

Groaning, Neil pulled himself off the sofa with a gargantuan level of effort, cataloguing his many aches and deeming himself fit to move. With practised grit, he shrugged off the majority of the pain and was up on his feet faster than expected. If he swayed slightly, well that was just because he stood up so fast – no other reason. Jaw set, eyebrows furrowed and shoulders back, he headed for the door.

What would happen now? He pondered his options as he tried to find his way through to the sofa room as he had taken to calling it. A night’s sleep hadn’t put his fears to rest. First and foremost, he was not safe at his apartment anymore. Andrew had put off the immediate problem of landlord discovery but he couldn't stay there any longer, it was past time he left Palmetto altogether. He was too vulnerable here, too exposed, his only option was to run once he left the Tower. Could he go back and pick up some of his belongings? There wasn’t much to retrieve – all he really needed was his laptop and his survival binder, though he could also do with a change of clothes and some basic toiletries. It was all in the quick-escape bag in his bedroom, he could be in and out in thirty seconds.

No, he let out a sigh as he finally found where he was going. There could be any manner of traps waiting for him, he couldn’t go back. The landlord would have fun with the contents of his storage but hopefully it would be attributed to some sort of obscure hobby. That or something sexual; Neil didn’t care as long as the cops weren't chasing him down as he fled.

Before he could go through the door to where the others – presumably – waited, Andrew stepped out of the room to meet him. Neil was forced to stop and take in his appearance. His eyes were bloodshot, he had a slight limp and even though most of his body was covered in fabric there were innumerable cuts and scrapes littering the small bit of skin that was on show; his hands, his face, his neck. To be blunt, Andrew looked like shit, but Neil took it all in with awe. Having been unable to catalogue any details the previous night, he drank them in now, each mark a testament to Andrew’s strength as a fighter – as a protector.

“The bodies are gone and your apartment’s as clean as I could make it in an hour. There’s no obvious blood and your blinds are taken down, so it’ll pass inspection. Here's your key back,” Andrew tossed it without warning – Neil just managed the catch, wincing at the cold sting of metal on his raw hands.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t bother,” Andrew replied bluntly. “I’m not going back, I can’t.”

“I know.”

Andrew couldn’t go back just like Neil couldn’t go back, though for a different reason. Andrew couldn’t leave the Tower now, not after this, not after a full-blown attack. He wouldn’t leave Kevin and the others, not if there was even the slightest chance it could happen again. Not now that the question was _when_ , rather than _if_ they would return.

“You’re not going back either.”

Neil couldn’t quite figure out if that was a statement or an order. “I know that, I’m not stupid.”

“You constantly prove otherwise but that’s irrelevant. I brought your laptop and your little runaway kit, nothing else looked important.”

Neil nodded, unsurprised by this. “Can I shower here before I go? If you have my bag I can bandage myself up fine, but I’d like to wash the cuts out before I’m restricted to gas station bathrooms.”

“I’m staying here now.”

“I know that, can I use your shower or not?”

“I’m staying here now,” Andrew repeated, looking at him like he was stupid. “So are you.”

Neil’s mind grappled with the statement for a moment before coming up empty.

“What?” he asked blankly.

“You’re staying here where I can keep an eye on you. Boyd owes you his life apparently, and you didn’t try to kill Kevin, so the others are on board.”

Neil was honestly stumped. He had come into the Tower a violent mess, killed several people, then yelled at Kevin Day and now he was being offered permanent residence? He would laugh if he didn’t want it so much, if there was any way he could actually accept the offer.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” Andrew’s voice was dangerous.

“I... I can’t. They know where I am, they tried to kill me.” Why wasn’t Andrew getting this?

“Your father’s men always know where you are.”

“My father’s men aren’t the Moriyamas.”

“Well, technically they are.”

“Don’t fuck with me now,” Neil snarled. “Don’t be so unnecessary. You know exactly what I mean.”

Andrew grabbed the back of his already-sensitive neck, painfully wrenching him down to eye-level. His eyes hardened at Neil’s flinch but he didn’t move, didn’t let up his grip.

“Listen to me very carefully,” he whispered, though it sounded deafening. “You were never safe so cut the bullshit. Your father’s men, the Moriyamas, it doesn’t make a difference because you can’t run from them – they found you before and they’ll find you again. You think you can take on your regular killers if you don’t know when they’re coming? I don’t, but for the sake of the argument I’ll humour you – you can deal with them. But the Moriyamas? You think they’ll just forget about you? You think they’re just going to let a loose end wander around? You’re not safe at your apartment and you’re not safe on the run so you might as well stay here. It’s not like you’ve anywhere else to go.”

“Why? Why would I stay here when Day has a target painted on his back? I may not be safe on the run but at least I’m not sitting in the one place I know the Moriyamas are looking.”

Andrew stayed a second longer before removing his hand and stepping away. “Run along then if you think you can make it,” he said. “You know the way out.”

There was a moment, just one moment of hesitation on Neil’s part as he turned to face the stairs, but it was enough. Andrew was right, running wouldn’t do him any good, not in the long run. If he died tomorrow, if he died in three years, what was the difference? Dead was dead and it wasn’t as if he’d spend the time building a life for himself, it would just be more of the same – surviving. If he stayed... Well, if he stayed it wouldn’t change anything, but he could live out his remaining days in relative comfort without having to constantly look over his shoulder, not with the others keeping an eye out for the same threats as him. Besides, he had promised not to run, and even if this situation was far from his mind at the time, he still didn’t want to renege.

Turning back, he took the final few steps toward the door.

“Sleeping beauty awakens,” Aaron groused as he walked in.

There was an obvious spot next to where Allison would sit, but though the cushion was physically empty, the space was not up for grabs. He took a seat on the elbow of a sofa beside Nicky, who patted his leg in what was probably meant to be a reassuring gesture. The cut on Neil’s thigh thought otherwise, and the resulting full-body flinch, though embarrassing, was enough that Nicky didn’t try again with Andrew’s eyes staring daggers at him.

Neil disregarded Nicky once the pain in his leg died down to a moderate level and devoted his attention to the rest of the room instead. Everybody was there except for Allison, all adorned with bandages, braces and, in Renee’s case, a sling. It was really beyond time he did the same to his own injuries; it was a miracle he hadn’t bled out onto the bedsheets – or couch cushions as the case had been.

“We need to be straight with Neil,” Dan said once they were all settled.

“I’d rather be gay with Neil,” Nicky looked up, eyebrows wiggling. Neil was rapidly growing tired of Nicky’s eyebrows.

“Nicky, any more shit and I will do to you exactly what I did to number three last night,” Andrew said in German from his seat in the sole armchair. His tone was even and if Neil wasn’t able to understand the words he would have assumed Andrew was talking about the weather or something equally banal.

“Nicky shut the fuck up,” Dan continued without batting an eyelid at the multilingual exchange. “If he’s staying he needs to know about us, about why we’re here and what we do.”

“So what? We’re going to go around the circle and take turns with the tragic backstories?” Aaron asked sullenly.

“Do you have any better ideas? No? Then it looks like yeah, we’re going around the circle. I’ll start. Hi, my name is Dan and I learned to kill people because I used to work at a strip club where one of the back rooms housed a money-laundering gang. One day I came to work and the place was burned to the ground. Never did find out what happened.”

“Hi Dan,” Nicky tried to laugh but it just came off as sad.

She nodded in acknowledgement before elbowing Matt to continue the chain.

“My mother’s a boxer and my dad is filthy rich. Let’s just say that the environment of fighting and money leads to some unusual friends. When my mom found out what they taught me she tried to get me to stop but dad thought he could use me. That’s where the divorce kicked in and I left.”

It continued on in that fashion, everyone in the room giving a few sentences about how they became deadly and displaced before finding each other. Neil learned about Renee’s past with gangs, how Nicky sought revenge after the love of his life was killed outside a club, was told how Allison rebelled against her parents by picking up a hatchet. Neither of the twins offered their full story. Aaron had come to the Tower to find Nicky and Andrew had dragged Kevin to join them just before Neil moved to the area. As for how they learned to kill? Andrew explained, or rather didn’t, in one line; _I was born a natural and some of it must have rubbed off on Aaron because one day he picked up a baseball bat and surprised us all._ Neil wasn’t sure what that meant but knew it was not the time to pry. Nobody asked Kevin and he didn’t open his mouth for the entire conversation; the implication being either that Neil already knew everything or he didn’t need to know.

They lapsed into less serious matters, though every now and then somebody would glance at the empty seats and duck out of the conversation for a few moments. At one point the sound of sobbing floated through the walls; everybody could hear no matter how hard they tried to pretend otherwise. Renee excused herself under the pretence of changing her bandages, motioning at Dan to stay when she went to follow. The conversation took on a hushed tone and Neil let his mind wander.

 “Neil. Neil!”

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. His fingers rubbed absentmindedly at his neck and he winced as he hit a bruise. “I zoned out there for a second.”

Matt’s face softened as he looked Neil up and down where he was still perched on the arm of the sofa. Somehow the others had all stood up. He wasn’t sure what was more alarming; the fact that he hadn’t noticed or the fact that he trusted them enough that he wasn’t completely on edge. They could easily overpower him – it was terrifying and comforting all at once to be surrounded by those who could kill him without having to worry.

“Still think you’re difficult to kill?” Andrew drawled from the armchair. He was the only other person still sitting.

“I’m here am I not? Clearly, you’re not as good as you think you are if you can’t take me out, even with my mind a million miles away.”

“My plan is to keep you talking until you bleed out.”

Dan coughed. “Actually Neil that’s a fair point, you should probably clean yourself up before any of those cuts get infected.”

“Yeah, I was going to ask about that actually. I have some first aid stuff with me, could I use a mirror?”

“Oh, I forgot you’re not used to this. Sorry, not used to us,” Dan corrected herself, noticing Neil’s indignant expression. “Aaron’s our resident doctor, he can patch you up no problem. Remember how he looked at you when you were concussed?”

Only vaguely, though he wasn’t going to admit that. Some of his memories from that day were a little fuzzy.

“I can do it by myself, I’m fine.”

“Sure you can,” Matt agreed, “but you don’t have to.”

This was new. His first instinct was to decline the help, to take care of himself like always. But if he was going to stay here, he might as well make himself at home. They seemed sincere in their offer, even if Aaron wasn’t best pleased, so what was the harm if he took their words at face value?

_It could be a trap. They could be luring you into a false sense of security only to kill you at the right moment. You’re a fool to trust them, you’re gambling with your life, this is not how you survive._

He pushed aside the thoughts threatening to overwhelm him and took the leap. 

“Okay.”

He allowed himself to be led to a bathroom.

“Shower,” Aaron told him sullenly. “Don’t rub too hard at any of your cuts but try and get most of the dried blood off. Shout when you’re ready and I’ll bandage you up.” He didn’t look happy about the prospect.

Neil struggled with the shower controls for a minute before figuring them out. He stepped back, allowing the water to warm as he shed his clothes, wincing as they ripped away from his many scabs. Of all his bad ideas, sleeping fully-clothed without cleaning up was probably the worst. Though he didn’t want to, he took a second to properly catalogue his injuries. None of the cuts were life threatening, but his thigh had started to bleed again at Nicky’s unintentional probing and so needed the most attention. His chest was littered with old scars but for once that was not the main attraction; it was his neck that drew the eye. It was almost entirely covered in bruises, with thumb marks obvious, and a few crescents where the attacker’s nails had drawn blood. His usually pale skin was a tapestry of black, blue, and red. It was only as his fingers touched the cool surface of the mirror that he realised he was staring. Quickly, the hand was withdrawn and Neil didn’t turn his head back until he was sure the mirror was fogged up.

Once he was dry – a delicate process that still managed to leave blood on the borrowed towel – and back in his boxers, he shouted for Aaron. Neil heard the hitch of breath as Aaron took in the old scars on his chest but didn’t offer any explanation - now was not the time for such truths and Aaron was not the person. He accepted the clothes thrown at him, however, placing them to the side until he was bandaged up.

And so they got on with it, neither of them speaking about anything other than the situation at hand – Aaron prompting Neil to move a limb, to turn his head, Neil biting back a curse as practised hands patched him up. Finally, they were done and Aaron left before Neil could figure out if he should say thank you. He probably should have. He’d get over it.

Kevin was waiting for him outside the bathroom. He cast an approving look over the bandages visible under Neil’s t-shirt before heading to the hallway and motioning at Neil to follow.

“It would make sense for you to stay in with Matt and Aaron since there’s a free bed now but that topic’s probably not worth broaching for a few weeks if you value your life so, for now, you’re in with Nicky, Andrew and I. You’ll be on the sofa, but hey, it beats lying dead on the street.”

Neil was yet to wrap his head around the volatile combination of fear, defeat and gallows humour that made up Kevin.

“That’s fine.”

Kevin nodded, leading him to a small closet stuffed with blankets and sheets.

“Kevin?” Neil cast aside his hesitation; this was as good a time as any to try and get some answers out of him.

“What?”

“Why don’t you fight?”

“I do fight, or did you manage to get another head wound and wipe last night from your memory?”

“No, that’s not what I mean. Why don’t you fight back? Why don’t you attack Riko?”

Kevin waited a long moment before replying, so long that Neil almost thought he wasn’t going to answer.

“I can’t,” he whispered eventually. “I just want all of this to end.”

A sudden wave of irrational anger swept over Neil.

“Then why don’t you let him kill you and get it over with.”

There was an awful sadness in Kevin’s eyes, too deep for one his age. It made Neil ache to even try contemplating its cause.

“I want it to end,” he said, turning to leave, “but not like that”.

Neil watched him go, noting the hunched shoulders and shaking hands. He felt like he was missing something in Kevin’s words, some key piece of understanding that would unlock the mysteries surrounding the man. He stared until Kevin was out of sight, still no closer to the truth but feeling a little emptier all the same, as if the sorrow was catching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps my favourite sentence so far: “Neil was rapidly growing tired of Nicky’s eyebrows.”
> 
> Tell me what you think, either in the comments or on my tumblr [palmettostatevixens](http://www.palmettostatevixens.tumblr.com) :)
> 
> Edit 16/10/16: I am still writing this, I promise! University started back for me about a week after this chapter was posted so I don't have much (read: any) time atm, but I'm squeezing in my writing whenever I can. I haven't given up, don't worry :)


	5. Stairway to Hell, The Elevator's Out of Order

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me in September about to go back to uni: I'll probably update next week!  
> Me in January: lol

It was surprisingly easy to fall into life at the Tower. The others were accommodating enough – they didn’t go out of their way to make Neil welcome, not all of them but that wasn’t what he needed anyway. Neil wanted safety, relative comfort and people around whom he wouldn’t constantly be on edge. The Tower provided, for the most part.

_His hand shot out to meet a shoulder. It was batted away but that was merely a distraction, his real attack was with the other fist, right into the abdomen. It would have momentarily incapacitated a lesser opponent but there wasn’t even a second of respite and the fight moved on without acknowledgement. Neil’s fist stung but that was to be expected._

There were some spats, sure. He and Aaron didn’t get along, Nicky tended to flit between courteous and pushy, Kevin was tragically infuriating even though he kept to himself for the most part and Andrew was quiet at best, violent at worst. Yet, somehow they were his company more often than not. Had the situation been different, maybe he would have fallen in with the others – Dan, Matt and Renee accepted him without complaint and he genuinely enjoyed their presence. Matt was particularly fond of him by Neil’s own judgement. The problem was Allison. She was no longer blaming him for Seth’s death, not when faced with the logic of his story and his support with the others. However, she was still mourning - an explosion waiting to happen - and Neil just didn’t know how to be around her when the only words between them were _I’ll fucking kill you._ Ironically, that made her more familiar to him than anyone else in the tower, but their’s wasn’t a particularly fast friendship.

_A kick to the groin deflected with a snarl. That was a reaction, something new. Neil dodged the retaliating fist, stepping around it and then further, grabbing onto the shoulder. He went to wrench it backwards but suddenly there was a forehead crashing into his own, knocking him off balance and loosening his grip. He stepped back and it was definitely a retreat._

It had only taken him a day to notice the obvious boundaries within the Tower. They weren’t physical, not really, the space was too shared for that. The lines were drawn in interactions and conversations. Andrew, Kevin, Aaron and Nicky were on one side with Dan, Matt, Allison and Renee on the other. It wasn’t a marked difference as far as Neil could tell, there had been no decision to separate, no hostilities behind the divide but it was there and it was clear. They interacted with each other and were mostly civil but there was an unspoken distinction between the two groups. It was interesting. Neil wasn’t sure where he stood. In the three weeks since he moved in, he had spent the most time with _Andrew’s lot_ as he had taken to calling them. However, with a few notable exceptions he much preferred his time with Matt and Dan.

_He was given no time to breathe or get his bearings before the attacks started coming – a fist, a kick, a knife. Neil avoided them but only just. At his best, he might be able to take the punch and keep going but he was far from his best, he was on the ropes, struggling to keep his head above water. But then – an opening. Ducking under a punch, he rammed into his opponent’s torso driving them backwards. They didn’t fall but it was a close thing and he was too close for their kicks to be of any use._

This was all overshadowed by Andrew himself. It was rare that many words would pass between them but Andrew’s presence came with an almost overwhelming sense of safety. Had Neil known that would be the case, all those months ago when the first assassin arrived in the new building, he would have left there and then. But he couldn’t have known, he had no prior frame of reference for that sort of trust, not since Mary Hatford pushed him out of a car telling him to run and that she would hold them off. She did as she promised and that had been that.

_One fist, two fists against his back. He used his own hands to echo the movement but his were placed better, he knew where to hit for it to hurt the most. His opponent fell to his knees and Neil followed, fists still flying. Finally, he reached for one last knife and brought it to the back of the bowed neck in front of him. It was over._

“Show me what you did to my back,” Andrew ordered once they both recovered their breath after their sparring match. He batted aside Neil’s offered hand and pulled himself up off the mat.

“It’s something my mother showed me. She’s the one who taught me to fight.” Neil’s heart rate was still faster than its usual, his head still smarting after colliding with Andrew’s. It hadn’t been hard enough to cause any damage - they were too careful for that - but it still hurt.

“Show me.”

Neil nodded, moving over to a mirror balanced against the corner of the wall. This was not the first time he and Andrew had sparred together, though it was the longest so far. It had lasted fifteen minutes and he felt a jolt of pride over his aching muscles. They should probably change the routine a bit to avoid growing accustomed to each other’s fighting style, perhaps by inviting others to spar with them - everyone in the Tower was deadly in their own right so it would certainly be beneficial. Andrew and Renee often fought together and Neil had teamed up with Matt and Dan several times, as well as Nicky and Aaron but that had all been one on one. If they could work as a group it would be even better.

“Turn around,” Andrew said. He went to work repositioning the mirror so that Neil could see.

They had become comfortable in their after-spar routine over Neil’s time at the tower. They would demonstrate moves to each other or point out specific places on the body that were particularly efficient to attack, staying at it until the move was mastered.

Neil positioned himself sideways in front of the mirror with Andrew behind him. From this position, Neil could see his own back in full as Andrew pointed and poked. He had learned pretty quickly that outside a fight Andrew wouldn’t let anybody touch him, even when demonstrating a move. This was one of the reasons Andrew didn’t branch out in sparring partners beyond Renee and now Neil but it really wasn’t much of an impediment to learning. Neil talked Andrew through the move and Andrew kept practising on Neil until he had it down. It never took more than a few minutes. Even if the move was dynamic, unlike pointing out areas on the body, Andrew was a quick learner and it was never a problem. The longest day had been the first one when they were still judging boundaries and rules to their system. Once Neil had clarified that he would tell Andrew to stop if necessary, the process went a lot smoother and their fighting was much improved as a result of it.

“Ready?” Neil twisted his head to look Andrew in the eye before starting his instructions. “Okay, so the first hit was to the spinal cord which would have your opponent on their knees. If you do it hard enough it could kill them but that takes a bit of practice so it’s best to assume you still have some work to do.”

He watched Andrew’s hand move over the back of his shirt, nodding approval once he found the right spot. “That’s it, the higher the better but only to a certain point. It usually only paralyses even if you do it right but if you can’t kill a paralysed opponent then that’s your problem.”

“The other one?”

“Small of the back. Again, hit hard enough and you’ll kill. Really if you’re going for the back you should be going for the nape of the neck as I’m sure you know but this works in a pinch if you can’t reach like I couldn’t there. Seeing as you’re even shorter than me, that’s probably going to be the case most of the time.”

“You think my height will prevent me from slitting your throat?”

“Is it preventing you from reaching my back? Because your dawdling is keeping me from sweet unconsciousness right about now,” he stifled a yawn.

“If you want to be knocked out that badly, I’d be happy to oblige,” Andrew threatened, though he quickly turned his attention back to the task at hand, his hand moving along Neil’s spine searching out the right spot.

“There?” he asked.

“No, it should be just to the side. There should be a small dip.”

The fabric scratched against his skin as fingers slowly probed around. For all Andrew’s strength, he was remarkably gentle when his hands weren’t being used to fight. Neil wondered if it was on purpose or his natural setting.

“There?” he poked a spot particularly hard as if to prove Neil’s thoughts wrong.

“No, just down a bit, it shouldn’t be too hard to find, it’s a really slight dip.”

There were a few more seconds of soft probing before the hand disappeared altogether.

“I can’t feel any dip,” Andrew sounded annoyed.

“It’s not very pronounced, you might not be able to feel it through my shirt.”

“Then I’ll keep moving my hand and you tell me directions as I go,” Andrew went back to work.

“Up a bit to the left, no you’ve gone past it. Down a bit more.” This was impossible. “There! No, you moved again.” Eventually Neil couldn’t take it anymore. As oddly relaxing as it was to have Andrew’s fingers running over his back, they weren’t getting anywhere with this method.

“Stop,” he grumbled. Andrew’s hand withdrew immediately. Neil reached down and pulled his shirt over his head in one fluid motion, trying not to fidget at the feeling of Andrew’s eyes roving over his back. There wasn’t much scarring to be seen from behind but he was still overly vulnerable, far too exposed. The top half of the burn from Nathan’s iron was probably visible, as well as a few odd scars, though most of it was mercifully hidden.

“Stay there,” he said quietly, seeing Andrew about to move in the mirror. Immediately the movement stopped.

“Can I keep going now if you’re finished stripping?” Andrew asked after a moment, a beat too late to be casual.

“Yeah.”

Without the barrier of fabric, Andrew was finished within a minute, fingers manoeuvring to the specific dip without difficulty. Watching in the mirror, Neil noted that Andrew’s eyes didn’t wander, didn’t take in anything more than what was explicitly offered. It was as reassuring as it was curious – another empty space in his knowledge of what made Andrew tick.

“Are you not going to do a twirl?”

It was too much to expect that the hints of cruelty would go unnoticed but then again Neil hadn’t thought they would. He knew what would happen when he pulled off his shirt, when he allowed glimpses of his past to see the light of day, or rather the artificial light of whatever the hell time it happened to be. Aaron had seen them, sure, but there had been no conversation there. That was strictly medical, strictly necessary. This was a choice.

He turned around. Deep breaths were for those willing to show their discomfort and even though it was incredibly obvious that he was outside his comfort zone, he would refuse to appear that way. The illusion of strength was, in the end, all he had.

Andrew looked for a moment, expression unmoving as he took in Neil’s torso. Some of the carvings were delicate, some less so and some not carvings at all, though the canvas was ruined nonetheless.

“Can I?” he gestured as if to touch.

Neil nodded his permission.

This time Andrew’s hands were slightly rougher but somehow that was okay. It felt right that these wounds, these memories should be explored without softness, with a hint of violence. There was a difference between this violence and that which inflicted the marks in the first place. The latter hurt, the former was strangely comforting. This violence was calculated, was measured. There was just enough to feel flippant, like this wasn’t a big deal, like this happened every day of the week when really the opposite was true.

“Your father?” Andrew asked, poking the iron-shaped burn on his shoulder.

Neil nodded, not trusting his voice to remain unaffected. It was a completely foreign sensation being so vulnerable under such scrutiny but somehow there was an element of comfort mixed in.

“What’s this?” the same finger prodded the shapeless patch of pale skin covering the side of his torso.

“Scraped against the tarmac when I jumped from a moving car.”

They continued in that vein, Andrew selecting a particular scar and Neil filling in the details as clinically as he could. Finally, the list came to an end and Neil was hit with a sudden wave of tiredness, not all of it physical. A shiver slipped past his guard as he fought back another yawn and Andrew’s eyes narrowed.

“Go and sleep if you’re finished showing off your patchwork. You’re no use to us if you’re too tired to fight.”

The words were biting and a month ago Neil would have taken offense to the notion that he wasn’t able to fight with everything he had. But that was all down to showing weakness in front of somebody else and he was long past the point where he was uncomfortable letting his guard down around Andrew.

“Okay. Wake me up later for my watch.”

“Well, I’m not going to cover it for you am I?”

“What if I asked nicely?”

“I’d tell you to go fuck yourself.”

“I won’t bother then.”

Pulling his shirt back on as he ran, Neil just managed to slip out the door before Andrew’s boot hit the wall where he had been only moments before.

“Missed me,” he yelled back into the room as he started towards the bedroom.

“You’re gone, aren’t you? That’s my wish come true.”

*****

True to his word, Andrew woke Neil several hours later for his watch.

The hours were structured in the Tower so there were always three people on guard at any one time. That meant Neil and Kevin were sent up to the roof with binoculars while Aaron manned the make-shift security room somewhere in the building. This was the first time the two of them had been alone since Neil confronted Kevin the day after the attack and one of the only times they had spoken at all. Kevin kept to himself, not involving himself in anything unless it was absolutely necessary. Neil still didn’t know what to make of it, he was still trying to wrap his mind around Kevin in general and his relationship with the Moriyamas. He wasn’t exactly sure how they all fit around each other, how the metaphorical chessboard was laid out. He knew the basics, the broad strokes but was ignorant of any details. However, mandatory night watch sounded like the perfect opportunity to fill in some of the blanks.

“Kevin,” he tested, “how do you know Andrew?”

That seemed like a good place to start. It was close enough to the topic that unless Kevin completely shut down it would be easy for Neil to steer the conversation where he wanted. However, it wasn’t a direct question about Riko and could easily be blamed on Neil’s curiosity about Andrew if necessary.

Kevin waited a moment before answering, most likely considering his words carefully.

“When Andrew was in West Virginia, that’s where Riko and I were based, he... Well, he came to our attention.”

“What does that mean?” Neil asked once it became apparent Kevin wasn’t going to expand without prompting.

“It means he’s very good at killing people, as you already know. There wasn’t much that goes on around the Nest that we didn’t know about. Especially anything involving corpses in the river. We offered him a job and he turned us down. I contacted him myself a few months later when-” he cut off, looking uncomfortable.

“When what?” It was cruel to push but Neil was okay with that.

“When I had to leave,” Kevin snapped, ending the conversation. “That’s enough, mind your own fucking business. Half of Evermore could have snuck up on us in the meantime.”

“Evermore?”

“Above your paygrade, now shut your mouth and keep your eyes peeled.”

The rest of the time passed in frosty silence, nothing else said until Renee and Nicky came to relieve them.

“Why did you leave?” Neil risked one last question before they parted ways at the bottom of the stairwell.

Kevin didn’t answer straight away and Neil resigned himself to a rebuke.

“I couldn’t stay after what happened, after what I did.”

It seemed more like a reassurance to himself than an answer so Neil let him go. Not to say he wasn’t curious but he knew how to pick his moments and asking again would only leave him with more bridges to repair before any future probing. The process would have to be delicate, there was no use in storming in and getting Kevin’s back up so early. He’d work everything out eventually.

*****

Another few weeks passed without incident and before he knew it Neil had officially fallen into a routine. He was firmly included in the workings of the Tower, so much so that he was on his way to pick up their weekly food supply. Not that they were about to run out, the Tower was prepared to go several months without further supplies if the need were to arise but there was something to be said for fresh fruit so without fail one of them made the run once a week. It was the first time Neil had been beyond the perimeter since he arrived and it was odd to contemplate how quickly he had settled into life in one spot. Though the updates from his source still arrived at their usual times, there had been no assassins sent since that fateful night so this would also be the first time he would have to have his guard up for several weeks. He had hardly noticed the sense of security until he had to build his walls back up.

However, that could wait until he reached ground level. The elevator down was filled with a comfortable sort of silence – a voluntary lack of sound that in no way implied that there was nothing to say. The words were there, easily within reach, they were just unnecessary. There was no real reason for Andrew to accompany him down, that much Neil knew. No real reason other than a promise to help and _if you die getting groceries that reflects badly on me._

Neil didn’t object either way.

The doors slid open to reveal the parking lot, Andrew’s car stark against the otherwise unoccupied lot. That was unusual for the time of day – normally there were a number of occupants taking advantage of the spot. Neither of them paid any attention to the fact; it was unusual but hardly unheard of.

That was their first mistake.

Andrew’s phone rang as they stepped out and he paused for a moment to check the caller ID. _Unknown number_ flashed before his eyes though Neil didn’t know that, having already started towards the car a few feet away.

That was their second mistake.

There wasn’t a third but the damage was done – at the last moment before the elevator doors closed, a man lunged from the shadows behind a pillar and shoved Andrew back into the lift. Neil only had time to turn and watch as the doors shut on the sight of Andrew, eyes bulging, being forced against the wall by the throat, phone lying forgotten on the ground.

There was ding as it started upwards, then silence. Internally, however, Neil’s mind was already racing through the possibilities, his feet sprinting towards the stairs to meet the elevator at the top. Why would Riko – because who else could this possibly be? – send a lone man to attack? There were seven other people to defeat once the elevator reached the occupied floor, one man couldn’t possibly take them all down. Neil’s stomach dropped a few seconds later when he was met with an answer as the lights shut off and a deeper silence fell. The power was cut.

This was bad, this was really bad. This meant they – Riko, _whoever_ – had control of the Tower, could shut everything down. But more than that it meant Andrew was trapped in the elevator with the attacker. Images flickered through Neil’s mind unbidden as he reached the main floor; Andrew’s face as the doors closed, the ease with which the man had him up against the wall, the memory of Andrew hitting the mat during sparring practice. Andrew wasn’t infallible, that was the unfortunate truth. It was fine to know that when it was just the two of them fighting, when there was nothing on the line but his own improvement. It was fine to know that when they weren’t up against somebody of this calibre, somebody with a _plan_. Now it was everything Neil didn’t want to contemplate.

Aaron met him at the top of the stairs. There was a frown on his face and while that was hardly a revolutionary act, it was tinged with practised suspicion. Aaron was often hostile and often specifically hostile to Neil but this look was focused and ready to kill.

“Where’s Andrew?” he demanded.

Ah, so that was it. He noted Aaron’s worry and filed it away – he could dissect the twins’ relationship later, for now they had to focus on getting Andrew.  

“He’s in the lift,” Neil supplied. “There’s someone in there with him and it’s stuck because of the power, we have to-”

There appeared to be no need for the rest of the explanation. Aaron’s face changed in an instant once he was given the facts and he started running to the living area.

“Stay there in case it opens,” he yelled back over his shoulder.

Where was he going? Neil was flummoxed, how could Aaron appear to care and then not be clawing at the doors to the elevator trying to reach his brother? But then the crash of metal came from the other room and Neil’s mind supplied him with the answer unprompted – _tools._ A crowbar would be best, no best would be a battering ram but a crowbar was the best he could hope for. Sure enough, when Aaron returned there was a dark crowbar in his hand, one that only narrowly missed Neil’s face as he swung it towards the gap in the doors before manoeuvring it into the proper position.

“If anything happens to him it’s on you,” Aaron informed him conversationally as they both put their weight behind the bar.

“I know,” Neil replied and apparently that was the right answer because Aaron grunted and shifted his weight, forcing the doors to open an inch. Another grunt, another inch, then another and suddenly there was enough of a gap for them to fit between.

Neil wasn’t sure what he expected to see in the elevator shaft but thankfully the unit had almost reached the floor before the power cut so it wasn’t too hard for them to hop down onto the roof. A sudden image crossed Neil’s mind – the power turning back on with the two of them standing there, suddenly becoming far too acquainted with the unforgiving ceiling. He blinked it away, focusing on the task at hand. There was a small trap door leading to the elevator itself and it took the two of them to lift it off. They leapt inside, Neil landing to the side and Aaron on top of somebody. There was a moment as they both took in the scene and then Neil’s blood boiled.

Aaron had used the attacker as a cushion on which to land, knocking him to the ground away from his twin. After taking a moment to check that Andrew – slumped against the wall where he was held up before he fell – was alive, he turned his attention to the dazed man underneath him. After five seconds and the swing of a crowbar, the threat was no more.

Neil could do nothing more than sit where he had landed, completely incapable of anything else when Andrew was in such a state. He had been held up by the neck judging by the already-forming bruises, though strangulation clearly hadn’t been the aim because his breathing was fine, or at least as good as could be expected after an assault. There were large knife slashes running from his abdomen to the top of his chest, easily visible from the rips in his shirt. Some smaller bloody tears scattered his torso, though much less dramatic. That, however, was nothing compared to his face. A heavy gash on his forehead accounted for most of the blood covering his eyes and cheeks, though there were some other smaller cuts too. The remaining skin not covered in blood, what little there was, showed small signs of discolouration that would no doubt bloom into deep bruises within the hour. Any other visible flesh – his arms, neck, hands – was the same. Andrew was going to be a tapestry of pain. No, he already was by the looks of it, his eyes vacant, and mouth turned up into a smile.

That was what made Neil move, in the end.

He drew in closer to Andrew, wary that crowding him would just induce panic. Somewhere behind them, Aaron had drawn himself up to a standing position, seemingly unable to move.

“This,” Andrew drawled, his voice catching on the single syllable. “This is not what I wanted.”

Neil didn’t manage a reply before he was forced to dodge a stream of vomit as Andrew leaned forward. Not all of it reached the floor, some of remaining on Andrew’s clothes, mixing with the still-drying blood and something else in a horrifying concoction. Tears, Neil realised suddenly, that was the something else. The realisation didn’t help, not one bit, it only made things worse. How could the man have gotten this much of an advantage over Andrew? He was strong, sure, that much was obvious from the muscles on the corpse, but so was Andrew. Neil had seen Andrew take down worse opponents, had seen him beat them to a pulp, even when taken unawares. How was it that he faltered now?

There was a sudden lurch and Neil couldn’t think for a moment, couldn’t do anything but stare at Andrew’s reaction to the movement. They weren’t touching, Neil wasn’t stupid enough to break that rule, not now, but he could still see how violently Andrew flinched, how his eyes flicked maniacally around the box trying to find the threat. It was interesting that he didn’t seem to put up a defence to the perceived danger, just wanted to know where it was coming from. It was terrifying to behold how incapable Andrew was of protecting himself in this situation. Neil wanted to shield him from it all, to make him know it was over but he didn’t know _how_.

So he did the best he could, showing Andrew what he was doing as he moved to wipe some of the assorted fluids from the ripped shirt, taking care not to aim for any of the deeper wounds. None of them looked life-threatening but Neil would be damned if he was going to let Andrew stay away from the hospital. Aaron was in no state to patch him up, not if the occasional whimper from his side of the elevator was anything to go by.

“Neil,” Andrew said simply, sounding oddly upbeat. “If you come any closer I’ll kill you.” He didn’t look Neil in the eye, choosing to direct his words to the ceiling.

Neil moved back another step, withdrawing his hand as the elevator came to a stop. The second jerk didn’t draw as much of a reaction from Andrew but there was still something, a blink that lasted a second longer than it should have. Neil had never seen Andrew like this, had never wished to and now that it was happening he didn’t know how to help. That was the only certainty his mind could grasp onto. He had to help, had to protect Andrew in this state. He had saved Neil multiple times and now it was time to work on that debt.

When the doors opened the hallway was mercifully empty. There was no way Andrew would want an audience, even if he did seem too far gone to process it properly. Neil offered a hand to help him up but it was batted away with such force that he didn’t repeat the offer when it came time to walk.

Andrew managed, barely. He was clearly in serious pain, a steady trickle of blood still making its way down his face. After two steps he stopped trying to hide his flinches, or at least his efforts stopped working, instead glaring so hard that even if the hallway had been packed full of his worst enemies, they wouldn’t have had the nerve to comment on it. He only made it a few steps before staggering and leaning into the wall for support.

It occurred to Neil that he should have pressed the button that would bring them back down to the parking lot instead of coming up to the living quarters. Now they faced the problem of having to return to the elevator or brave the stairs and it was up for debate whether or not Andrew could manage to walk down the few floors. Somehow Neil doubted it.

“We have to get him downstairs,” Aaron whispered as if he could read Neil’s thoughts.

“Andrew you have to go to the hospital,” Neil didn’t respond to Aaron’s secrecy, instead opting to include Andrew. There was some part of him that wouldn’t allow the conversation to happen without his knowledge.

“Are you implying that my stunt double can’t put me back together again? Not with all the king’s horses and all the king’s men?”

There was something terrible about seeing Andrew like this. He was physically broken, yes, but that paled in the face of his deliria. Aaron seemed more on edge about it than Neil did, probably because it hit far too close to Andrew on his meds for comfort. Neil had only read about them and even then it was in strictly medical terms – Aaron had to live with the Andrew who didn’t have control of his own emotions. This was probably exactly the reminder he didn’t need.

“Aaron’s in no state to fix this.”

Aaron seemed to bristle at the comment but made no move to correct Neil. He was professional enough to realise that this required external help.

“Do I need fixing?” Andrew was smiling and a deep sadness opened up somewhere inside of Neil, quickly smothered by his ever-escalating anger at the situation and the voice in the back of his head whispering a terrible possibility.

“Yeah. You do.”

Andrew studied Neil’s face for a moment, still slumped against the wall, though sliding down minutely.

“Well then let’s go.”

Instead of moving back towards the lifts, he hobbled past them, pausing at the top of the stairs as if contemplating the challenge ahead.

“Neil come here,” he ordered slowly. Neil did as told.

Andrew allowed him to come within two paces before motioning at him to stop. He took the last step himself to bring them closer before grabbing Neil’s shoulder roughly and bringing him down to eye level.

“Don’t you dare touch me,” he snarled, his face inches from Neil’s.

It should have been terrifying. It wasn’t.

“I won’t. I swear.”

“Your word doesn’t mean a thing to me.”

“Then what does?”

Andrew didn’t answer that, just tightened his grip on Neil.

“Just help me down the fucking stairs and keep your mouth shut.”

If it had been any other occasion Neil would have pushed, would have demanded an answer. But this was far from the time to get in any verbal hits, this was Andrew’s own sort of compromise and he wasn’t about to abuse it. As gently as possible, he tucked the hand on Andrew’s side into his back pocket, keeping the other free so he could grasp the rail as they went down. Andrew followed the hand every inch of the way and his grip didn’t loosen for a second until the process was complete. Finally, they inched towards the door to the stairwell, Neil keeping pace with Andrew and trying to take as much of his weight as he could manage.

It seemed to take an age before they reached the bottom. Some part of Neil had expected Andrew’s grip to get stronger over the course of their descent but he was sorely mistaken. By the time they reached the bottom Andrew was barely holding on. It was incomprehensible to think that it was only minutes ago that they had come down to the parking lot in the first place, it seemed like the entire world had shifted since then, like they had moved into another frame of reference and everything was changed but somehow still the same.

Aaron had taken the elevator down and was waiting for them.

“Took you long enough,” he said. He spoke to the wall ahead of him as if he couldn’t bear to look at Andrew but had to anyway as his eyes flickered to his brother every few seconds. Andrew ignored him completely and continued to the car before pausing for a moment to contemplate the vehicle. He finally glanced at Aaron, then at Neil, before reaching into his pocket and dumping his keys on the ground.

“Neil’s driving,” he announced before letting go of his grip on Neil’s shoulder and moving slowly to the passenger door.

Aaron looked from Neil to the keys in abject horror before schooling his face back to moderate annoyance. He wasn’t fooling anyone, there was still a deep paleness to his face and the crease in his forehead was deeper than Neil had ever seen it. He was rattled.

“You can drive if you want,” Neil said softly. This wasn’t a conversation that needed Andrew’s input so he didn’t speak up in inclusion.

“No, I fucking can’t,” Aaron spat back. This time there was no mistaking his anger and Neil’s mind flicked back to the scene outside the closed elevator, to Aaron’s words of blame. Suddenly everything made a little more sense, even as more questions flooded Neil’s brain.

“I hate to break up the little heart to heart, I really do,” Andrew’s voice carried over the car. “But a truly remarkable volume of blood has decided to leave my body so I’m afraid I’ll have to hurry you up all the same.”

Neil snapped back to himself, immediately ashamed. He shrugged out of his sweater and motioned at Aaron to do the same, before picking up the keys and getting into the car. He reached over the console to open Andrew’s door, with Aaron shutting it once he was inside.

“Can you put pressure on the cuts yourself or do you need Aaron to help?” Neil asked bluntly. There was no time to beat around the bush, not when Andrew’s face looked as white as a sheet behind the bruises and the blood.

A moment passed before Andrew answered.

“Aaron can help,” he muttered eventually.

“Aaron, recline the seat fully and use the sweaters to put pressure on anything that’s still bleeding,” he ordered as he started the car.

Really they should have done that before they even left the elevator in the first place, really they should have called an ambulance, _they should have, they should have, they should have_... Andrew was looking weaker by the second and the nearest hospital was still ten minutes away if the traffic was light.

Neil forcibly silenced his thoughts, mechanically going through the motions of driving. There was a fine balance between going as fast as possible and not jostling Andrew any more than absolutely necessary. Even as careful as he was, Andrew still hissed in pain at every bump or sudden movement. After a few minutes, the hissing stopped and that was worse. Neil didn’t allow himself to glance over until they were stopped at a red light and what he saw made him slam his foot down on the accelerator, traffic be damned. The sound of horns followed them as he raced ahead. They were past the time when a stray bump would do Andrew any more harm, now it was only speed that mattered. After too long – _far too long, please don’t be too long –_ he finally slammed down on the brakes outside the hospital, yelling at Aaron to run inside and bring paramedics with a stretcher. There was no way they’d be able to get Andrew in just the two of them, their only option was to stand by and let the professionals do their job.

The next few moments passed in a blur. He stayed in the car with Andrew for what seemed like an eternity, alternating frantically between watching the slight rise and fall of his chest and searching for Aaron and the paramedics out the window. The waiting seemed to last forever as if they were trapped in some sort of timeless place. Was Andrew’s breathing getting weaker? Or was Neil just imagining things? His eyes fluttered closed as Neil watched, his previous maniac stare hidden for a few seconds before he shot halfway up in his seat, frightening half the life out of Neil.

“No stay lying down please, _please,_ ” he rambled desperately, trying to get Andrew to keep still without touching him.

Andrew didn’t listen. It looked like it took nearly everything he had to come up to a sitting position, if it could be called that. Instead of lying down he was now slumped over the dashboard in obvious pain.

“Take off my armbands,” he growled through gritted teeth. “And don’t say please.”

“What?”

“Take off my fucking armbands.”

All of a sudden it clicked. Andrew couldn’t be admitted with his knives, there would be too many questions that he wouldn’t be able to answer. Even worse, maybe he would answer if Neil’s terrible hunch was right and he had been slipped some sort of pill in the elevator. That would explain why he wasn’t killed outright - this was crueller in a way.

There was a moment where Neil half expected Andrew to rip the armbands off and hand them over before he processed that he would have to act himself. He reached slowly over the console to inch Andrew’s sleeves up his arm until they reached the top of his armbands. Then with slightly more care than he was willing to admit, he peeled off one armband, then the other. He tried to sneak a glance at Andrew’s inner forearms against his better judgement but even bleeding out, Andrew still had enough wits about him to angle them away from Neil. If his fingers brushed the skin as he removed the armbands, well that was just an accident. If he felt a distinct turn of his stomach at the confirmation of what Andrew was hiding then that was his own fault.

Andrew’s eyes burned when they rose to make contact, full of the knowledge of Neil’s transgression.

“Keep your mouth shut,” he snarled. “Consider that payment for your own  _memories_.”

Neil just nodded, vaguely numb with everything that had happened. He understood the trade - Andrew considered it repayment for seeing his own scars after their sparring match the other day. It seemed like a hollow justification but if Andrew could make it work then he wasn’t going to argue.

It might have been another minute, or ten when Aaron finally returned with paramedics in tow. Their removal of Andrew only seemed to take seconds and suddenly Neil was alone again in the car, Aaron having left with them to go inside. There was no point in Neil following; even if he was family they wouldn’t let him near Andrew for hours yet until he was stable - if he was stable. He tuned out the world as he sought out the hospital parking lot, mindlessly manoeuvring into a spot and killing the engine. There was a moment of pure silence before a phone rang from the floor, making him jump and curse.

It was Andrew’s, it must have been in his pocket and fallen out at some point during the journey. Should he answer? He debated for a moment before checking the caller ID. It was Kevin, so he accepted the call and brought the phone to his ear.

“Andrew? Is that you, what’s going on?” Kevin's voice fell somewhere between furious, worried and hysterical and Neil winced at the volume.

“Kevin this is Neil, Andrew’s in the hospital and Aaron’s with him.”

“What? Is he okay?”

“No. He was attacked on the way to the car earlier before the power cut. He’s the worst I’ve ever seen him.”

There was no point in sugar-coating the reality of the situation, Neil didn’t believe in coddling.

“Is... Is he going to be okay?”

“I don’t fucking know.”

There was a pause in the conversation as Kevin let out a slow breath on the other end of the phone.

“Neil, please, is he going to be okay?”

He sounded vulnerable.

“I told you I don’t know.”

“Jesus Christ,” there was some muffled swearing before Kevin spoke up again. “I’ll be there soon, I’m just getting into my car now.”

“No!” Neil was surprised by the intensity of his own voice.

“What?” Kevin seemed surprised too.

“You can’t come here.”

This time the silence was icy. “Are you going to stop me?” Kevin’s voice was dangerous in the way that only someone truly desperate could manage.

“Your face is too recognisable. How long do you think it’ll take before the news gets out that America’s Sweetheart has finally emerged in public after his mysterious disappearance? That won’t help Andrew. You’ll just bring the media down here and that’s the last thing we need right now. Don’t be stupid Day.”

Kevin waited a moment before replying. “Fine,” he submitted. “Fine. Just... Just please keep me posted. It’s not just me, everybody’s on edge here after the power outage earlier and now this but tell me if anything happens, no matter how small.”

“I will,” Neil promised. “Kevin stay with the others yeah? Don’t go off on your own.”

An unamused laugh sounded in his ear. “What are you, my mother?” Kevin snapped. “I thought I told you to keep your nose out of other people’s business.”

“This is my business. If you go and do something stupid it could affect Andrew’s recovery. If you get yourself captured or killed then it’ll be on him. Don’t you dare let his protection fail just because he’s in the hospital.”

“You... You know about that?” Kevin sounded almost nervous.

“A guess that you’ve now confirmed. I don’t know specifics but I do know that if you get hurt then Andrew will blame himself and I won’t let that happen. So cover yourself in bubble wrap and lie low.”

“Fine... Fine.”

“Good. Now let me go so I can find Aaron and make sure he hasn’t killed anyone in the waiting room. Also can somebody please deal with the corpse in the elevator?”

“The what? Fuck, yeah okay.”

“Okay then bye,” Neil moved to hang up.

“Wait Neil!”

“What?” It came out harsher than intended. So much had happened and it was proving impossible to keep it all inside.

“I just... I can’t have anybody else die because of me. This has Riko written all over it. If there’s anything you can do to get him back, do it. Money is no object, I have more than I’ll ever need. Just get him back, he can’t die, nobody else can die.”

Neil’s mind instantly flashed to Seth and he had to bite back the retort on the tip of his tongue. He wasn’t in the business of censoring himself to spare the feelings of others but that would hit too close to home for the current situation.

“Yeah I will.”

“Bye.”

Kevin hung up without any more warning.

“Dickhead,” Neil muttered to himself.

He had to admit, the conversation had sparked his curiosity. Kevin was clearly cut up about Andrew. It made sense if Andrew was the one to help him escape from his life with Riko and the Moriyamas but this sounded like more than mere gratitude. Kevin was quiet, Kevin seemed to constantly pretend that he wasn’t living at all; this level of emotion was unheard of. The strain had been evident in his voice, he was on the edge of hysteria by the sound of it. Then there were his last few words – _I can’t have anybody else die because of me._ That spoke of a history, of experience with death. Neil was no stranger to the concept himself but this was something deeper. Kevin had clearly been in this position before, or something close to it, with somebody he cared about being killed because of him. Was that why he seemed to constantly be in a state of mourning? Was that the reason behind his withdrawal from public life? Why he left Riko’s side in the first place? Everything came back to Kevin in the end, every shift in Neil’s life over the past number of months and he’d like to finally get some concrete answers on the topic. It wasn’t likely to happen now, not with the panic and inconvenience of Andrew’s hospitalisation, though hopefully everything would be easier with the weight of Kevin’s money behind the scenes.

Speaking of which, it would probably be prudent to mention that to the hospital admin, to make them aware that Andrew could afford the best treatment possible.

Rolling his shoulders to ease out the stiffness, Neil opened the door and exited the car. The click of the lock seemed terribly loud in the otherwise abandoned parking lot. That was weird actually, he had driven through two levels to reach this one and they were both occupied fully, surely there should be some other cars around.

Shit.

Turning quickly, Neil scanned the space for signs of life, every survival instinct he possessed telling him to run. All of his worst fears came to light as he noticed the one other car on the level. Not that it was hard to find – the headlights switched on once Neil turned, blinding him as the darkness was chased away by the awful strength of the beams.

The lights didn’t dim as he heard, rather than saw, someone exit the car in question. He could almost feel the vibrations of the slammed door, his senses were so alert to the danger.

How had he let his guard down, how had he been stupid enough to walk into such an obvious trap? He had been on the run for years now, had survived for so long and this was how it was going to end? His father’s men finding him in a hospital parking lot? It was laughable in an awful sort of way. He tossed Andrews’s keys under the car and slipped a knife from his belt discreetly, hiding it up his sleeve until it was needed. If his father was smart he would have sent more than enough men to incapacitate him – Nathan Wesninski was well aware of his son’s skill, he wouldn’t take the risk of botching such an easy job. A single knife likely wouldn’t make a jot of difference but there was no way he was going down without a fight.

He tensed, ready for a struggle, ready to cling to life with everything he had as the figure began to walk towards him. There was only one for now, though that meant nothing when there were so many shadows in which to hide. There could be any number of attackers hiding throughout the space, Nathan was undoubtedly sending this one first as a distraction.

But when the figure finally became visible in the stark light, it wasn’t Nathan’s face that came into view.

“Hello Nathaniel,” grinned Riko Moriyama. “Get in the car.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure I spent the past few months drowning in uni stuff (in a good way). This next semester is less hectic because I've just finished my *big* exams so I will actually be updating this regularly enough. Sorry for the wait but hopefully there are still some of you reading this!
> 
> I'm on tumblr at [palmettostatevixens](http://www.palmettostatevixens.tumblr.com).
> 
> (feedback is welcome)


	6. Long Time No See, Wish It Was Longer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey pals there was a hurricane in ireland on monday which resulted in an impromptu day off uni (whoop). so instead of working on my lab report like a responsible student i thought i'd update this thing for the first time in nine months (oops)

_Stupid._

_Naïve._

_Suicidal._

Neil’s mind flickered through the synonyms for his mistake as Riko’s car made its way further and further from the hospital. He hadn’t been able to put up a fight in the end, not with so much stacked against him. Attacking Riko wouldn’t have done any good – he would have been shot from a distance the moment he made a move. There was a certain level of rashness within Neil, yes, but he knew when he couldn’t win. It was simply more prudent to wait until a moment presented itself. That is, _if_ a moment presented itself.

Riko wasn’t driving though neither was he paying Neil any attention. The only other kidnapping Neil had ever been privy to – disregarding his initial trip to the Tower with Andrew and Kevin – had involved a lot more blood. He had been seven when Nathan had deemed it educational for him to accompany Lola as she dealt with an unsatisfactory employee. The scene had burned its way into his brain and refused to leave – it sat like a brand on his innocence even years later. There wasn’t a lot of sense in it– since then he had seen much worse, hell he had delivered much worse – but that initial exposure to such extreme violence had seared itself in his memory seemingly permanently. It seemed you never forgot your first time.

Riko, thankfully, didn’t seem eager to cause the same effect. Not yet at least, there were bound to be some horrors awaiting after all.

It was another hour by Neil’s estimation before the car finally came to a stop. Riko leant forward from his place across the back seat from Neil to confer with the driver before snarling at Neil not to move as he left, slamming the car door in his wake. When nothing seemed to happen in the next few minutes, Neil took the time to consider his options. Should he attempt to make a run for it? There was only the driver left in the car with him, was it worth the risk? He had no way of knowing what awaited outside the vehicle thanks to the blacked-out windows but the surroundings were unlikely to be friendly. It only took a few moments of deliberation before he reached the inevitable conclusion - there were simply too many unknowns to factor in. Riko hadn’t even bothered to restrain him so he clearly wasn’t an escape risk. He could only assume that escape was too difficult to even contemplate.

“Where are we?” he asked the driver, utilising the one option available to him.

“Don’t bother,” came the emotionless reply.

“Where are we?” he repeated.

The driver merely sighed before turning around and jamming a previously-unnoticed Taser into Neil’s side. Neil froze, anticipating the pain but it didn’t arrive.

“If you say one more word without being asked, I have full permission to hurt you,” the driver said in the same unaffected tone.

Neil nodded, not sure if verbally acquiescing would earn him some volts.

“I see we understand each other.”

It was a while before he was allowed to leave the car – enough that any sense of the time elapsed was long gone - and when finally he was allowed move, Riko was nowhere to be seen.

“Come with me, don’t make any noise,” he was told by a rather generic-looking thug whom he had no choice but to obey.

Neil wasn’t stupid, he knew exactly what Riko was doing. Making him wait completely unrestrained, sending somebody to collect him; Riko was flaunting his power. He was making sure Neil knew exactly who had the upper hand, not that there was much doubt in the first place. It was rather childish really. He had expected better.

The man led him through a seemingly-endless series of identical black corridors before he was finally ushered into a room and thrown to his knees. Somewhere deep in his head the pain registered but it was muted, dulled by the overwhelming sense of panic-tinged hopelessness. Riko’s mind games in the car hadn’t been anything more than mildly irritating but the journey inside had more than made up for that. Neil had lost track of how long they were walking and how many corners they had turned. Everything looked the same – he could be two feet from the exit having walked in a dozen circles or he could be a mile underground, there was no way to tell. The last time he had felt this powerless was in the aftermath of Andrew’s drugs. What he wouldn’t give to have Andrew by his side now. But no, a moment’s contemplation changed his mind. He didn’t want Andrew anywhere near this place, especially in the state he was in at the moment. One ally wouldn’t help him get out with his life, he would hardly feel more confident if the entirety of the Tower was behind him. No, this was a situation where it was good to be on his own – if he saw a chance to escape he could take it without having to worry about anybody else. It hadn’t been so long since he had only himself to rely on, he had hardly forgotten how to survive alone. Granted he had never quite been in this position before.

Time blurred once more as he waited in the dark. The room was painted completely black – the floor and ceiling included – and was devoid of any furnishings. There was a tiny blue light in one corner that served to give the room an unnerving feeling rather than act as a light source. It was not a room meant to hold anybody long term. What an awful, tacky place to die.

Eventually the sound of footsteps reached his ears, at first far off but coming closer. Judging by the sound there were two people, both roughly the same weight but when the door opened only Riko entered the room.

“Still here Nathaniel? I have to say I’m surprised, I was expecting to have to hunt you down. There was nobody at the door you know, you could have made a break for it.”

Doubtful, Neil rolled his eyes.

“I stayed just to spite you really, there’s no fun in being a rabbit running around in somebody else’s warren.”

“You don’t want to play the rabbit? That’s a change of tune. What would Alex say? Or Stefan? Or Chris?”

If Riko was expecting a reaction he’d be sorely disappointed. He’d clearly done some digging and learned all there was to know about Neil’s previous aliases but that wasn’t surprising, he should have more than enough resources to get to the bottom of that particular ladder.

“Or Mary?”

Something must have shown in Neil’s expression because a slow smile knifed its way across Riko’s face.

“That’s right,” he grinned, “I know all about you and yours.”

“What the fuck do you want?” Neil snarled, suddenly at the end of his rope. He had no particular objections to laying into Riko verbally but it was probably smart to try a diplomatic approach first. Well, moderately diplomatic.

“Oh no attitude? From what I hear you’re quite the smart-ass. Should I be honoured that you’re recognising my authority?”

“I don’t need to know how long your dick is Riko, so cut the bullshit. Why am I here?”

Then again, diplomacy was overrated. 

“There’s that patented Wesninski charm. As you’re no doubt well aware, Kevin and I had a little falling out and I do miss him dearly. I want him back and you’re going to bring him to me.”

There was a moment of silence as Neil waited for him to continue before realising that was it. He laughed at the sheer arrogance.

“Do you really think I’m going to give Kevin up because you tell me? You’re not half as smart as I thought you were and I was lowballing to be honest. I won’t work with you.”

“If you do this you can walk away, no consequences.”

That made Neil pause for a second. Not because he was considering it but because he should have been. When had he become the sort of person to risk his own neck for the people around him? A few months ago he would have accepted the offer in a heartbeat but now he wouldn’t even think of turning his… Kevin over to Riko. They weren’t even friends, Kevin had never spoken a single pleasant word to him. If it was Andrew, or even Matt or Dan then there would at least be some sense in it. But Kevin? He was really about to throw away his chance at walking for Kevin Day?

Apparently so.

“Sure I can,” he put as much derision into the reply as he could muster. It wouldn’t do to let on to Riko that he actually cared about the others back at the Tower; he had to play the situation as if his own life was the most important thing. It would make sense to simply doubt Riko’s offer of freedom instead of declining it outright.

Riko considered him for a long minute and Neil’s skin crawled under his gaze.

“You’ll bring Kevin to me.” It wasn’t a question.

“No I won’t.”

“You don’t have a choice. I own you. The only reason you’re alive right now is because you’re in a position to get me what I want. I won’t kill you if you do exactly as I say. You’re right, I won’t let you go but I won’t kill you. That’s the extent of your bargain.”

Neil scoffed.

“You don’t own me,” he leered. “I know the Moriyamas are powerful and I’m not stupid enough to get involved with the main branch but you don’t own me. Maybe the Lord could make a deal for me, but you? My father’s a bigger fish than you and he wouldn’t take kindly to you killing his son.”

A look of genuine joy grew in Riko’s eyes as he listened to Neil’s speech.

“Oh you have no idea,” he laughed.

That didn’t sound promising.

“No idea about what?” Neil asked, trying not to let his nervousness become apparent. Judging by Riko’s expression he hadn’t succeeded – he looked as if his wildest dreams had just come true.

“You think Nathan Wesninski is higher up the pecking order than I am? You think he’s on par with the Lord? Oh I knew he was full of himself but I didn’t think he’d lie to his son about something so important. I own you because I own your father. He answers to me, not my brother, just me. Therefore so do you.”

No. That couldn’t be true, he couldn’t believe it. To do so would be to accept that he was in the worst position of his life, opposite a man who owned his worst nightmares.

“No,” he tried, but his voice was faint and cracked. “No,” slightly better, “you’re lying.”

“Oh Nathaniel, why would I lie? I already have you here, what could I gain by lying?”

“How would I know why you’d lie? You’re the parasite here, I can’t relate.”

Riko’s smile fell.

“I’d be more careful if I were you,” he said slowly. “Didn’t your father ever teach you any manners?”

“My father thought me how to dismember a body. There aren’t many manners involved in removing somebody’s skin. Though I suppose you wouldn’t know much about fathers isn’t that right? How insensitive of me.”

Riko’s smile was back but now it was a thing of pure violence.

“Well Nathaniel, I was planning on having a chat before I got to this particular surprise but as you seem so focused on fathers tonight I’ll switch up the itinerary.” He knocked on the door, signalling to somebody outside – the second pair of footsteps. “I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to witness such a reunion.”

They both turned to the door as it began to open, Neil’s mind screaming at him to run, to hide as he began to comprehend the meaning behind Riko’s words. Contextually there was only one person who it could be.

His worst fears were confirmed as Nathan Wesninski walked through the door and the blue light glinted off Riko’s teeth.

Nathan’s eyes followed Riko’s gaze and he stared at Neil for a moment before comprehension dawned on his face.

“Nathaniel.”

“Nathaniel doesn’t exist,” Neil snarled.

“You’re right. Nathaniel, my son, died years ago. You’re an insult,” Nathan considered him with a sneer.

“Better an insult than a Wesninski.”

“You’re no Wesninski.”

“Well,” Riko interjected, “that’s not quite true. I can use him so I need him broken.”

“I’ll break him alright but I’m not leaving him alive.”

The air seemed to grow colder as Riko took in Nathan’s words. He moved slowly to stand between father and son.

“You’ll do what I tell you to. Do whatever you want with him but I need him alive and functioning at his best. Understood?”

Nathan worked his jaw furiously under Riko’s stare before eventually nodding his acquiescence. Riko was nearly a foot shorter than him but in that moment their heights seemed reversed and Riko the more powerful of the two by far.

“Correct answer. Don’t make me have to ask again.”

They turned back to Neil.

“I’ll give you two the evening to… catch up,” Riko announced. “A reunion like this doesn’t happen every day, I think it’s important that you get reacquainted with one another. I’ll send for Lola to bring supplies shall I?”

At Nathan’s nod, Riko went to leave.

“Oh and Nathaniel?” he turned in the doorway. “Just remember, none of this would have happened if you had just ran in the first place.”

The door thudded shut behind Riko locking Neil in his coffin. He felt his father’s hands on his neck, moving upwards across his jaw only stopping when Neil’s head was cupped between his hands. To an outsider it would almost seem like a loving gesture. But an outsider wasn’t privy to the rage simmering in Nathan’s eyes, to the tightness of his grip, to the pain promised by his mere presence. He could kill Neil right at that moment without straining a bit. It was that, more than anything else that forced Neil to believe Riko’s claims of power. Only the tightest of leashes could keep at bay the intense hatred staring Neil in the face.

It was hours before he finally blacked out from the pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am making literally zero promises about when the next update will be but know that i have this completely planned out and it's the most work i've ever put into a fic so i want to finish this if it's the last thing i do.
> 
> catch me on tumblr at [palmettostatevixens](http://www.palmettostatevixens.tumblr.com) :)


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